Run Program on Low/Critical Battery in Vista

Hello.

I would like to know how to set a Vista (Ultimate) system to run a program
at the Low and Critical battery states, as well as when it is plugged into
the AC power supply, and unplugged from the AC power supply. Under Windows
XP, this was easy to do through the Power settings in control panel in
conjunction with the task scheduler. However, I cannot figure out how to do
it at all under Vista.

I have been told I can do this with the group policy object editor in Local
Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System
> Power Management > Notification Settings. However, attempting to set the
Notification action gives me only Hibernate, Shut Down, Sleep, or Take No
Action. There is no option for Run Program.

I have attempted to find a way to do this with task scheduler, but despite
looking for many hours for an Event ID and Log associated with Low Battery
and Critical Battery notification, or with AC power connect/disconnect, I
cannot find it. Without knowing the trigger settings, I cannot create the
task.

Ideally, I should like to do all of this with Task Scheduler if possible. If
you are interested in knowing why, it is because I have a Dell XPS M1710 with
the fancy LEDs, and I can control the LED colour with a simple command line
action. Right now, I can set this to a hotkey like CTRL-ALT-R for red, but I
would prefer it if I could hook these to battery states, so that at Low
Battery it would run a task to make them turn yellow, and another task at
critical battery to make them turn red, this way I can see it from across a
room, rather than having to sit at my desk and observe the power
notification. This is important in my classroom setting, and I was able to do
it under Windows XP. I cannot imagine that functionality would have been
REMOVED in this later, better version of windows.

Summary:
I would like to use Task Scheduler to run a program when the following
events occur:
Low Battery
Critical Battery
AC Power Connect
AC Power Disconnect
If there are specific logs/event IDs for these, that is really all I should
need to create the task in Task Scheduler.

And since I'm wishing, is it possible to have windows detect the power state
at startup and run the appropriate program based on the power state? i.e.
Windows boots, realises it is not plugged in, and runs the "Not Plugged In,
Dave" program during/immediately upon boot? It would be lovely to have Blue
LEDs when plugged in, and Green LEDs when not plugged in, but at normal
battery level.

Looking forward to some educated, helpful replies!

+S.Cooper

You can use RMClock with the Pro add-on (15 euros I think) to run a
custom program on power source change.


--
dumboi
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