Windows 10: Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10

How to: Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10

How to Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10


A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.

All users (standard and administrator) will be able to make changes to any power plan settings.

Changes made to a power plan will affect all users that have active power scheme.

Windows 10 includes the following default power plans:

• Balanced - Offers full performance when you need it and saves power when you don't. This is the best power plan for most people.
• Power saver - Saves power by reducing PC performance and screen brightness. If you're using a laptop, this plan can help you get the most from a single battery charge.
• High performance - Maximizes screen brightness and might increase PC performance. This plan uses a lot more energy, so your laptop battery won't last as long between charges.
• edition starting with Windows 10 build 17101. Provides ultimate performance on higher end PCs. It builds on the current High-Performance policy, and goes a step further to eliminate micro-latencies associated with fine grained power management techniques. As the power scheme is geared towards reducing micro-latencies it may directly impact hardware; and consume more power than the default balanced plan. The Ultimate Performance power policy is currently not available on battery powered systems.

This tutorial will show you how to restore the Balanced, High performance, Power saver, or Ultimate Performance default power plan if missing in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: Restore Missing Default Power Plan by using Command
• Option Two: Restore Missing Default Power Plan by Importing POW file

EXAMPLE: Windows 10 default power plans









OPTION ONE [/i] Restore Missing Default Power Plan by using Command
1. Open a command prompt.

2. Copy and paste the command below for the missing power plan you want to restore into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
(Power saver)
*Arrow powercfg -duplicatescheme a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a

(Balanced)
*Arrow powercfg -duplicatescheme 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e

(High Performance)
*Arrow powercfg -duplicatescheme 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

(Ultimate Performance - Windows 10 build 17101 and later)
*Arrow powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
3. You can now close the command prompt if you like.









OPTION TWO [/i] Restore Missing Default Power Plan by Importing POW file

*note You must be signed in as an Option One will not work for you.
1. Click/tap on the download button below to download the Default_Power_Plans.zip file.
Download
2. Save the Default_Power_Plans.zip file to your desktop.

3. Unblock the Default_Power_Plans.zip file.

4. Open the Default_Power_Plans.zip file, and extract (drag and drop) the Balanced.pow, High performance.pow, Power saver.pow, or Ultimate Performance.pow file to your desktop for the missing power plan you want to restore. (see screenshot below)



5. Open an elevated command prompt.

6. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter to import the power plan (.pow file). (see screenshot below)
*Arrow powercfg -import "Full path of .pow file"

*note Substitute Full path of .pow file in the command above with the actual full path of the .pow file (ex: "Ultimate Performance.pow") file from step 4.

For example: powercfg -import "C:\Users\Brink\Desktop\Ultimate Performance.pow"




7. When finished, you can close the elevated command prompt if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Choose a Power Plan Scheme in Windows 10
• How to Specify a Default Active Power Plan in Windows 10
• How to See Your Current Active Power Plan Scheme in Windows 10
• How to Create a Custom Power Plan in Windows 10
• How to Export and Import a Power Plan in Windows 10
• How to Delete a Power Plan in Windows 10
• How to Change Power Mode Level in Windows 10
• How to Change Power Plan Settings in Windows 10
• How to Reset and Restore Power Plans to Default Settings in Windows 10
• How to Rename a Power Plan in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Ultimate Performance Power Plan in Windows 10
• How to View All Power Plan Settings in a Text File in Windows

:)

 

Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10  

Hi Brink, there's good and bad news *really
The good news: I was able to restore all missing power plans. The bad news: the restored power plans show up as long as Modern Standby is disabled (value 0 in csenabled registry key).
Here is what I did:
I started having "Balanced" as the only power plan displayed. I then disabled Modern Standby as you suggested and multiple instances of the various power plans showed up as seen below:



So I then went ahead to delete the added power plans to start from a clean state using your instructions
I then added the power plans using Powershell as explained in this thread. The power plans were added successfully as shown below:



I then enabled Modern Standby, rebooted and this was the result:



So I disabled Modern Standby and finally got back the missing power plans again:



Also I observed another change: now, the power icon in system tray does not show the slider to set it to save or best performance, as seen below:



So the question remains: how to have Power in Control Panel show all Power Plans without having Modern Standby Disabled.

 

Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10  

Hi Brink, sorry for my late reply, been busy, I tried all methods (importing files, and using powershell as administrator) with no success, only "Balanced" plan shows. I also tried manually creating High and Ultimate Performance plans, but it just creates a clone of the Balanced settings. Here are some screenshots of the current state of my laptop (the second image shows the displayed battery icon info in System Tray, which I set to Best Performance)

 

Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10  

 

Restore Missing Default Power Plan by using Command

Actually, Importing these missing default power plans did not do anything on my Surface Book 2 as of 6/7/18 on Windows 10 Pro version 1803. It still only list "Balanced"

 

Restore Missing Default Power Plan by using Command

see the pic. those are attempts to create custom plans with same names