Aerofoil

Aerofoil is a small tray utility for Windows Vista and Windows 7 to automatically disable the Windows Aero Glass interface, and optionally switch Windows Power Plans, Windows SideBar and sound off when your NoteBook computer runs on battery. Aero Glass is re-enabled on program Exit or whenever it is connected to the AC power again.In addition it also provides other useful features such as a quick hibernate shutdown option and manual control of Aero Glass. The purpose of these changes is to extend your notebook Battery Life: - Aero Glass requires substantially more graphics processing power than when it is switched off. - Windows Power Plans are optimised for particular power modes. Windows will show warnings in the Power Options like "Your current plan may reduce battery life" or "Your current plan may reduce performance" if you use (respectively) high performance on battery or power saver when plugged in. Aerofoil can switch these two plans for you automatically so these messages will never appear. - Windows Sidebar is a nicety, which uses idle processing power, whenthe CPU should/could be in a low power state - this is not ideal for a notebook when running on battery. - Sound is not always needed especially if you are business user, all of those bells, pops and clicks all use power that could be saved. Aerofoil will also show whether your system is on battery or AC by the colour of the tray icon it has, red is battery, green is AC - useful to know if you have forgotten to press the power socket switch or the power lead is incorrectly inserted!