{"id":50653,"date":"2010-04-14T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2010\/04\/14\/hey-scripting-guy-how-can-i-retrieve-information-about-laptops-changing-from-full-power-to-minimal-power-usage\/"},"modified":"2010-04-14T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T00:01:00","slug":"hey-scripting-guy-how-can-i-retrieve-information-about-laptops-changing-from-full-power-to-minimal-power-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/hey-scripting-guy-how-can-i-retrieve-information-about-laptops-changing-from-full-power-to-minimal-power-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Scripting Guy! How Can I Retrieve Information About Laptops Changing from Full Power to Minimal Power Usage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bookmark<\/a><\/p>\n

 \n\"Hey,<\/p>\n

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a number of users on our network that use laptops as their primary workstation. These users are constantly complaining that their screen goes dark on them, or that the computer is running slow. I think the problem is the laptops switching between battery and AC power, or maybe the computer sensing that it is idle and switching to a power conservation mode. I know I could probably query the event log to find power management log entries (the laptops are running Windows 7), but I am not sure what entries I should look for, and I do not want to have to weed through hundreds of log entries. Therefore, what I want to know is: Can I use WMI to help me?<\/p>\n

— KB<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Hey,Hello KB, <\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. Today is an absolutely wonderful day. There have been dozens of tweets on Twitter from people who love the Scripting Wife<\/font><\/a> Hey, Scripting Guy! posts I have been writing for the Weekend Scripter<\/font><\/a>. Because of the overwhelming response, I have decided that we’ll run an entire week of Scripting Wife articles the week before the 2010 Scripting Games<\/a> kickoff on April 26, 2010. There have also been several e-mails to scripter@microsoft.com<\/font><\/a> about the Scripting Wife articles. If that were not enough, I got my supply of ANZAC biscuits<\/font><\/a> and Tim Tams<\/font><\/a> from my buddy Brent. Brent is a TAM (technical account manager—the TAM here has nothing to do with Tim Tam) in Sydney, Australia, and he ensures I do not run out of biscuits. <\/p>\n

KB, using WMI eventing, you can obtain information about your laptops switching from full power to minimal power usage. You can also see when your laptops switch from battery power to AC power. To use WMI eventing you will want to use the WMI class Win32_PowerManagementEvent<\/b>. This is an intrinsic WMI event class, and therefore, you can use it directly with the Register-WMIEvent<\/b> Windows PowerShell cmdlet. <\/p>\n

Note: Yesterday<\/a> we looked at using a generic WMI Event class, _InstanceCreationEvent<\/b>, and a regular WMI class, Win32_LogicalDisk<\/b>, to generate events when a USB drive was inserted into a computer. <\/p>\n

To create a WMI event that will monitor for power management events, use the Register-WMIEvent<\/b> cmdlet and specify the WMI class Win32_PowerManagement<\/b>. Provide a name like power<\/i> or something memorable for the SourceIdentifier<\/b> parameter. The complete command is seen here: <\/p>\n

Register-WmiEvent -Class win32_PowerManagementEvent -SourceIdentifier power<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

After you have registered to receive power management events via WMI, leave the Windows PowerShell console minimized, or continue to use the Windows PowerShell console to do other things. You are not required to devote exclusively the Windows PowerShell console to monitoring for events, but you do need to have the console to receive events. You will not receive a notification when an event is generated unless you use the Get-Event<\/b> Windows PowerShell cmdlet. When using the Get-Event <\/b>cmdlet, you need to specify the SourceIdentifier<\/b> parameter that you created when you used the Register-WmiEvent<\/b> cmdlet to create the event subscription. This is shown here:<\/p>\n

Get-Event -SourceIdentifier power<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The Get-Event<\/b> cmdlet returns a System.Management.Automation.PSEventArgs<\/b> object for each event that was generated. The members of a System.Management.Automation.PSEventArgs<\/b> object are seen here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-Event -SourceIdentifier power | Get-Member<\/p>\n

   <\/span>TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSEventArgs<\/p>\n

Name             <\/span>MemberType Definition
—-             <\/span>———- ———-
Equals           <\/span>Method     <\/span>bool Equals(System.Object obj)
GetHashCode      <\/span>Method     <\/span>int GetHashCode()
GetType          <\/span>Method     <\/span>type GetType()
ToString         <\/span>Method     <\/span>string ToString()
ComputerName     <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String ComputerName {get;}
EventIdentifier  <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Int32 EventIdentifier {get;}
MessageData      <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Management.Automation.PSObject MessageDa\nta {get;}
RunspaceId       <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Guid RunspaceId {get;}
Sender           <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Object Sender {get;}
SourceArgs       <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Object[] SourceArgs {get;}
SourceEventArgs  <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.EventArgs SourceEventArgs {get;}
SourceIdentifier Property   <\/span>System.String SourceIdentifier {get;}
TimeGenerated    <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.DateTime TimeGenerated {get;}<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

When you use the Get-Event<\/b> cmdlet, all of the returned objects are displayed on the Windows PowerShell console. This is shown in the following image.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

What you are really interested in seeing is the information from the NewEvent<\/b> property of the System.Management.EventArrivedEventArgs<\/b> object that is returned by the SourceEvent<\/b>. The NewEvent<\/b> property contains an instance of a Win32_PowerManagementEvent<\/b> WMI class. This WMI class is shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> $a[1].sourceEventargs.newevent | Get-member<\/p>\n

   <\/span>TypeName: System.Management.ManagementBaseObject#Win32_PowerManagementEvent<\/p>\n

Name                <\/span>MemberType Definition
—-                <\/span>———- ———-
EventType           <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.UInt16 EventType {get;set;}
OEMEventCode        <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.UInt16 OEMEventCode {get;set;}
SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR Property   <\/span>System.Byte[] SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR {get;set;}
TIME_CREATED        <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.UInt64 TIME_CREATED {get;set;}
__CLASS             <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __CLASS {get;set;}
__DERIVATION        <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String[] __DERIVATION {get;set;}
__DYNASTY           <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __DYNASTY {get;set;}
__GENUS             <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Int32 __GENUS {get;set;}
__NAMESPACE         <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __NAMESPACE {get;set;}
__PATH              <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __PATH {get;set;}
__PROPERTY_COUNT    <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.Int32 __PROPERTY_COUNT {get;set;}
__RELPATH       <\/span>    <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __RELPATH {get;set;}
__SERVER            <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __SERVER {get;set;}
__SUPERCLASS        <\/span>Property   <\/span>System.String __SUPERCLASS {get;set;}<\/p>\n

PS C:><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

To examine one of the events, you can index directly into the collection as shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> $a = Get-Event -SourceIdentifier power
PS C:> $a[1].sourceEventargs.newevent<\/p>\n

__GENUS             <\/span>: 2
__CLASS             <\/span>: Win32_PowerManagementEvent
__SUPERCLASS        <\/span>: __ExtrinsicEvent
__DYNASTY           <\/span>: __SystemClass
__RELPATH           <\/span>:
__PROPERTY_COUNT    <\/span>: 4
__DERIVATION        <\/span>: {__ExtrinsicEvent, __Event, __IndicationRelated, __SystemClass}
__SERVER            <\/span>:
__NAMESPACE         <\/span>:
__PATH              <\/span>:
EventType           <\/span>: 10
OEMEventCode        <\/span>:
SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR :
TIME_CREATED        <\/span>: 129153128712446330<\/p>\n

PS C:><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

You can list all of the events, the time they were generated, and the type of event that occurred by piping the result of the Get-Event<\/b> cmdlet to the Foreach-Object<\/b> cmdlet. This is shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> Get-Event -SourceIdentifier power |
>> Foreach-Object { write-host $_.TimeGenerated $_.sourceEventargs.newevent.eventType }
>>
4\/9\/2010 2:54:17 PM 10
4\/9\/2010 2:54:31 PM 10
4\/9\/2010 3:11:25 PM 10
4\/9\/2010 3:12:08 PM 10
4\/9\/2010 3:16:12 PM 4
4\/9\/2010 3:18:33 PM 7
4\/9\/2010 3:18:33 PM 18
4\/9\/2010 3:58:53 PM 10
4\/9\/2010 3:58:59 PM 10
PS C:><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

KB, that is all there is to using WMI events to monitor for power management events. WMI Week will continue tomorrow when we will talk about…wait a minute. <\/p>\n

If you want to know exactly what we will be looking at tomorrow, follow us on Twitter<\/font><\/a> or Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send e-mail to us at scripter@microsoft.com<\/font><\/a> or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/font><\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Ed Wilson and Craig Liebendorfer, Scripting Guys<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a number of users on our network that use laptops as their primary workstation. These users are constantly complaining that their screen goes dark on them, or that the computer is running slow. I think the problem is the laptops switching between battery and AC power, or maybe the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,3,4,45,6],"class_list":["post-50653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-events-and-monitoring","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell","tag-wmi"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

  Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a number of users on our network that use laptops as their primary workstation. These users are constantly complaining that their screen goes dark on them, or that the computer is running slow. I think the problem is the laptops switching between battery and AC power, or maybe the […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}