In Laptops we can see battery icon(also known as power icon) on the taskbar which indicates the amount of battery charged or the amount of time the laptop can run without external power source. A snapshot of this icon is shown on the left.
If you don’t see this battery icon in the task bar you can add it back by doing the following steps.
XP:
- Open power options properties by running powercfg.cpl from Run window(Alternatively you can open it from Control Panel -> Power Options).
- Click on Power Mangaer tab.
- Click on the button ‘Launch Power Manager’. This will open up your laptop model specific power manager utility. My laptop is of Lenovo model and it opens Thinkvantage power manager utility.
- Here we need to change the settings to display power icon in the taskbar. Check for options/settings. In Thinkvantage power manager you need to open ‘Options’ tab and enable the check button ‘Show power manager gauge in the taskbar‘.
Windows 7:
The above steps would work for Windows 7 also, the only difference being that the user interface has changed for powercfg.cpl. Also,Windows 7 has a more simple way to add power icon to taskbar. Right click on Taskbar, click on Properties. Now click on Toolbars tab and select the check button ‘Power Manager’.
To add battery icon to the system tray:
Apart from the laptop specific power icon, Windows OS also provides a battery icon in the system tray. In XP this looks like below.
This mini power icon can be added to system tray as per the below steps.
- Open power options properties by running powercfg.cpl from Run window(Alternatively you can open it from Control Panel -> Power Options).
- Click on Advanced tab.
- Select the check button Always show icon on the taskbar.
- Click on Apply and close the window. Now you should be able to see battery icon in the system tray.