...as it says on the title, I was trying for a lite install of the latest Windows 11 home, but for some reason Battery & Power tab of the settings force closes on me, with no errors visible I can find. Everything else on my PC (that I have tried) works as expected with this profile. This is the last kink to iron out before I can do the jump, and I cannot test on another machine, I must test on 'self' otherwise its not a notebook and the tab doesn't show up, making it very annoying to figure out which component is causing this.
Power & Battery force closes
- Thread starter PhsMu
- Start date
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Try it without removing Cortana and see what happens, since that's usually why things in "Settings" break.
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure what the screenshot is showing us, can you elaborate please? I'm not seeing any uninstalled battery inf files, and powerautomate has nothing to do with battery. I must be overlooking what you're pointing out.
And yes, Cortana has constantly been the culprit behind Settings and other big issues, especially prevalent in W11 now, along with a few other dependencies. Maybe that's not the issue for OP, but it's arguably the best starting point:
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...ndows-11-start-menu-explorer.3195/#post-30547
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...-settings-search-not-working.3192/#post-30514
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...d-cortana-apps-in-windows-11.3186/#post-30468
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...-works-windows-11-22h2.2883/page-3#post-29874
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...dows-10-11-diy-preset.2350/page-14#post-29347
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...dows-11-just-wont-open.2865/page-2#post-26902
And yes, Cortana has constantly been the culprit behind Settings and other big issues, especially prevalent in W11 now, along with a few other dependencies. Maybe that's not the issue for OP, but it's arguably the best starting point:
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...ndows-11-start-menu-explorer.3195/#post-30547
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...-settings-search-not-working.3192/#post-30514
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...d-cortana-apps-in-windows-11.3186/#post-30468
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...-works-windows-11-22h2.2883/page-3#post-29874
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...dows-10-11-diy-preset.2350/page-14#post-29347
https://www.ntlite.com/community/in...dows-11-just-wont-open.2865/page-2#post-26902
Power Automate AFAIK is about Automation of tasks, not Power Profiles.Seems Cortana is the new default - hmmm - what a easy way
For OP seems you unticked something needed about power/ battery - take your pick.
View attachment 8675
And I frequently use the search, in all tabs as a matter of fact.
I did NOT think of Cortana and I'll be testing it right away. If it is her, damn, that's going to be a pain and half to neuter afterwards.
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
I think Cortana (at least in more recent W10 and W11 builds) has garnered an overreaction from just about everyone on this forum. It's not necessary to neuter it, I'm not sure what people think they are gaining by butchering it, except to break their OS. Give me about 10 minutes and I'll put together a small package that explains how I effectively make Cortana a non-issue on my W10 build, and you can either use that directly and/or see how it works on W11 and adjust accordingly to your needs. I think it's actually pretty easy to handle with only a few reg keys and a Windows Setup toggle.
I would actually urge Nuhi to update NTLite to do whatever he can to get people to stop removing this component, whether it's additonal warnings, compatibility settings, or whatever. It's causing way more problems and NTLite reports than it's worth.
I would actually urge Nuhi to update NTLite to do whatever he can to get people to stop removing this component, whether it's additonal warnings, compatibility settings, or whatever. It's causing way more problems and NTLite reports than it's worth.
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I don't know about Cortana because I ALWAYS remove it, but on my phone, any sort of voice recognition/search eats my battery. Simply disabling mic and camera access already gives me hours more of runtime on my device, at the cost of a prompt when answering a call or taking a photo. And the device in question is a notebook. Not to mention the privacy aspect. Sadly, we live in a world where every mic is ALWAYS listening and every camera is ALWAYS watching. Even if they're not, I treat them as if they are, because information is power and money, and the big hats are always after more of both.
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Oh for sure, I totally agree, I want it as disabled as possible too, I just draw the line right before it breaks the OS is all. My android phone has everything disabled too lol, I'm not even forced to sign into Google because I turned off all the background crap that forces that 
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Here's my Cortana guide for anyone interested. It hasn't given me any problems in the 12 months I've been using it:
https://www.ntlite.com/community/index.php?threads/guide-optimizing-cortana.3215/
https://www.ntlite.com/community/index.php?threads/guide-optimizing-cortana.3215/
Cortana started life as a separate voice assistant (to Master Chief) in early W10, then became an integrated Search component in later W10. Then transitioned to where the 21H2 Cortana app could be removed. So when you say "I want to remove Cortana", WTF are we editing?
The answer depends on what Windows release, and there is no one-size-fit-all solution. There's enough users on old 1809 or whatever releases that your 21H2 guide won't work for them correctly. Hence the confusion...
The answer depends on what Windows release, and there is no one-size-fit-all solution. There's enough users on old 1809 or whatever releases that your 21H2 guide won't work for them correctly. Hence the confusion...
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Sure, but like anything Windows you have to adapt it to your situation, and I specifically point that out. Unless Cortana just doesn't have any registry keys at all in certain versions then even on 1809 or whatever I could figure out how to do the same. NTLite and every other tool on the market are no different, not all the options in these programs work as expected on every version or edition.
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Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
I know this sounds like Microsoft bashing, but I really am not trying to do this. I want everyone to always make whatever decision they feel is right for them, but there is an old adage, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." And for me, that applies to using Windows 11.
Every operating system requires several years for it to reach maturity in performance and stability. This is just a cold hard fact. For as much supposed improvement you get by moving onto new operating systems (people claim these new e-cores or whatever only work on W11, blah blah blah) you lose just as much performance from the additional bloat that comes with each new, heavier OS, thus making it a wash at best, or decreasing performance at worse.
Drivers and 3rd party software also need time to adapt, all the while Microsoft is constantly changing things around in the new OS, breaking one thing while fixing others, making the adaptation process long and arduous. No new Windows has ever been a straight upgrade out of the box.
So I think the takeaway I'm trying to say, is there is a sweet spot for keeping your sanity and for performance. You want an operating system that's not too new, but not too old and is capable of handling whatever specific needs you have. For many of us, those needs are gaming, and I believe that W10 21H2 fits that bill the best right now. If you want to get away from the bugginess then it requires moving away from W11. Anyone staying on super old versions of Windows or super new versions will always have issues they need to contend with and will need to be decent troubleshooters to make it work.
Every operating system requires several years for it to reach maturity in performance and stability. This is just a cold hard fact. For as much supposed improvement you get by moving onto new operating systems (people claim these new e-cores or whatever only work on W11, blah blah blah) you lose just as much performance from the additional bloat that comes with each new, heavier OS, thus making it a wash at best, or decreasing performance at worse.
Drivers and 3rd party software also need time to adapt, all the while Microsoft is constantly changing things around in the new OS, breaking one thing while fixing others, making the adaptation process long and arduous. No new Windows has ever been a straight upgrade out of the box.
So I think the takeaway I'm trying to say, is there is a sweet spot for keeping your sanity and for performance. You want an operating system that's not too new, but not too old and is capable of handling whatever specific needs you have. For many of us, those needs are gaming, and I believe that W10 21H2 fits that bill the best right now. If you want to get away from the bugginess then it requires moving away from W11. Anyone staying on super old versions of Windows or super new versions will always have issues they need to contend with and will need to be decent troubleshooters to make it work.
That may be the for the best, yeah. At least until I have a machine to test these stuff, because testing on your main machine is just... pain.
Unlike you I'm not so keen in not sounding like I'm bashing Microsoft. If it sounds like that, they deserve it and more. The LAST good Windows was 7. The moment they turned what should be an operating system into a data collection engine, they went away from the good path. The only reason I keep using it (and most people as well, I'm sure) is because some of my stuff requires windows and there's no alternative. They have people behind their project of power and that the people who have the power to change that don't do anything is just sad.
On a more problem focused note though, I need android compatibility in my windows, and sadly Google Play Beta doesn't install (Error 1603), and Windows Subsystem for Android doesn't work for Windows 10. Any ideas?
Unlike you I'm not so keen in not sounding like I'm bashing Microsoft. If it sounds like that, they deserve it and more. The LAST good Windows was 7. The moment they turned what should be an operating system into a data collection engine, they went away from the good path. The only reason I keep using it (and most people as well, I'm sure) is because some of my stuff requires windows and there's no alternative. They have people behind their project of power and that the people who have the power to change that don't do anything is just sad.
On a more problem focused note though, I need android compatibility in my windows, and sadly Google Play Beta doesn't install (Error 1603), and Windows Subsystem for Android doesn't work for Windows 10. Any ideas?
Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
Oh yeah I agree to the max. I'm just actively trying to not be so negative these days, since people have pointed out that I bash MS a lot in the past lol.
Honestly, I'm still contemplating abandoning Windows entirely and just moving to console gaming and putting a PS5 on my computer desk haha. It's the reason I haven't built a new gaming rig yet and I'm still using this outdated 13 year old beast that was built for XP/7. Because I'm not sure yet that all these headaches are worth it anymore. To quote the famous Clanger, "I'm too old for this s***".
It took me 8 months of INTENSE research and testing to figure out almost all these tweaks on my own for 21H2, because everything on the web is so outdated, and Microsoft changed how stuff worked so many times and released so many versions of W10, that people couldn't keep up. A lot of the important TenForums tutorials regarding Defender/Windows Update for example are all incorrect at the moment, and that site is fabulous. So even the best people are struggling to stay on top of Microsoft right now.
Things just aren't nearly as simple as they used to be on like XP. It's why I literally stayed on XP SP3 all the way until December of last year, I refused to move on because it worked and had no performance problems and was highly stable. I mean I've still had to deal with Vista/7/8 and 11 because my friends and family are on all of those, so I had to learn them anyway to assist them, but I won't put them on my gaming machine.
lol.Honestly, I'm still contemplating abandoning Windows entirely and just moving to console gaming and putting a PS5 on my computer desk haha. It's the reason I haven't built a new gaming rig yet and I'm still using this outdated 13 year old beast that was built for XP/7. Because I'm not sure yet that all these headaches are worth it anymore. To quote the famous Clanger, "I'm too old for this s***".
It took me 8 months of INTENSE research and testing to figure out almost all these tweaks on my own for 21H2, because everything on the web is so outdated, and Microsoft changed how stuff worked so many times and released so many versions of W10, that people couldn't keep up. A lot of the important TenForums tutorials regarding Defender/Windows Update for example are all incorrect at the moment, and that site is fabulous. So even the best people are struggling to stay on top of Microsoft right now.
Things just aren't nearly as simple as they used to be on like XP. It's why I literally stayed on XP SP3 all the way until December of last year, I refused to move on because it worked and had no performance problems and was highly stable. I mean I've still had to deal with Vista/7/8 and 11 because my friends and family are on all of those, so I had to learn them anyway to assist them, but I won't put them on my gaming machine.
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Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
I think I do have the answer for this. I too just tried recently to get Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on my machine to do some coding, and you need to make sure 2 sets of things are enabled for it to work. I bet the Google thing is the same. The errors they give aren't very clear so I had to figure this out the hard way...
You need to make sure virtualization is enabled. Both in the Bios (Hyper-V) and in Windows. It's obvious when you think about it, but easy to overlook.
ok, Cortana is NOT needed for Power & Battery, just windows search. I still need more testing to figure out why I can't install APPX stuff and why file explorer and other inbuilt stuff seizes up when I have search enabled and why it doesn't when I remove it.
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NTLite update solved my problem, just don't put Windows Search or Cortana, and Windows behaves normally. Battery also works now, and I can install APPX.
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Hey y'all, I'm having this same issue, using the GamerOS profile as a base. I've tried numerous combinations of checks/unchecks and I've searched all throughout the options in NTLite, but no luck so far. I've tried without Cortana/Windows Search, with both of those, with just Windows Search, and I've looked through everything else and so far cannot solve this issue. I'll keep trying different options, but if anyone might have an idea of something to try please let me know. So far with each attempt search and Explorer work fine, everything seems to work fine except for the Power & Battery menu, any attempt to enter that menu causes Settings to instantly crash.