 | By Fred Langa When your PC’s power-management systems malfunction, don’t just throw up your hands and prepare to pay a higher electric bill. Restoring your power options in XP may be as easy as running a downloadable script, or if not, you can bring the options back via a manual Registry tweak. |
If XP’s Power Options Properties are grayed out
Eric Bloch got a surprise when he went to adjust the power-management options on his XP Home PC:
- “I’m running WinXP Home, fully updated. Recently, when I tried to modify the Power Options Properties, all I saw was this useless dialog [shown in Figure 1]. Help!”
Figure 1. Eric Bloch’s Power Management options mysteriously became grayed out.
The most common cause of this problem in XP is a software update — especially driver software — that goes awry. Many of your PC’s hardware components tie into the Windows power-management system, but alas — hardware makers don’t always write great drivers.
For example, let’s say you install a new video driver. If the driver is buggy and interacts improperly with your settings to blank the screen or put the monitor to sleep — well, you’ve got trouble. In XP, the loss of your power-management options is one possible outcome.
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