Microsoft Exec Blames Batteries, Not Windows 7

After a recent spate of complaints that Windows 7 has been shortening the life span of and possibly damaging batteries in laptops after installing the new operating system, the senior Microsoft executive responsible for Windows 7 spoke out Monday.

In a lengthy post on the Engineering Windows blog, Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky told users the problems are most likely due to old or defective batteries.

"To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning [about] batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement," Sinfosky's post said.

Although battery life complaints had been trickling out for months, particularly in regard to netbooks, more users of full-function laptops began complaining on Microsoft's TechNet forums in the past few weeks.

A surge of complaints first caught the media's attention in late January. Users complained about receiving the message "Consider replacing your battery," followed by battery failure, in many cases with older laptops but in some instances with brand-new machines and brand-new batteries.

"My notebook was pre-installed with Windows 7 Professional and about 6 weeks later, the 'Consider replacing your battery' message popped up in the system tray and of course the big red X with 0% remaining icon," said one poster whose screen name is "Adrian88" on Feb. 1.

The ominous-sounding message is, in fact, a new feature added in Windows 7, according to Sinofsky's post, meant to help users better gauge the health of their laptops' batteries. "Windows 7 makes use of a feature of modern laptop batteries which have circuitry and firmware that can report to Windows the overall health of the battery," his post said.

"All of the battery actions of charging and discharging are completely controlled by the battery hardware. Windows only reports the battery information it reads from the system firmware," he said.

The idea that Windows 7 is either modifying the batteries' internal information or damaging the batteries "is definitely not possible," Sinofsky added.

That's all well and good, said several very recent posts on the TechNet forums, but it doesn't completely explain problems that some users are seeing. "I ordered a replacement main battery and module bay aux battery. Running now with both batteries, I still have my system shutdown unexpectedly," a user with the screen name "TheBashar" complained in a post in the early evening Pacific time on Monday.

Another perturbed user with the screen name "Jujusous3" was a bit more irate and lashed out at Sinfosky's suggestions on Monday afternoon.

"STOP SAYING WE ARE Lying or we have OLD Battery, it's FALSE ! OK ? I'm very angry when i see people who said it's not the problem of Microsoft, again it's totally false, my battery is new and an authentic Dell, and [it] works very well with Vista, now with Seven, I have 5 minutes, then my pc stops working!"