Before you can use power management in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, you must perform the following configuration steps.

Enable and Configure Power Management Client Settings

This procedure configures the default client settings for power management and will apply to all the computers in your hierarchy. If you want these settings to apply to only some computers, create a custom device client setting and assign it to a collection that contains the computers that you want to use power management. For more information about how to create custom device settings, see How to Create and Assign Custom Client Settings.

To enable power management and configure client settings

  1. In the Configuration Manager console, click Administration.

  2. In the Administration workspace, click Client Settings.

  3. Click Default Client Settings.

  4. On the Home tab, in the Properties group, click Properties.

  5. In the Default Client Settings dialog box, click Power Management.

  6. Configure the following value for the power management client settings:

    • Allow power management of devices – From the drop-down list, select True to enable power management.

  7. Configure the client settings that you require. For a list of power management client settings that you can configure, see the Power Management section in the About Client Settings in Configuration Manager topic.

  8. Click OK to close the Default Client Settings dialog box.

Client computers will be configured with these settings when they next download client policy. To initiate policy retrieval for a single client, see the Initiate Policy Retrieval for a Configuration Manager Client section in the How to Manage Clients in Configuration Manager topic.

Exclude Computers from Power Management

You can prevent collections of computers from receiving power management settings. If a computer is a member of any collection that is excluded from power management settings, that computer does not apply power management settings, even if it is a member of another collection that applies power management settings.

You might want to exclude computers from power management for any of the following reasons:

  • You have a business requirement for computers to be turned on at all times.

  • You have created a control collection of computers on which you do not want to apply power management settings.

  • Some of your computers are incapable of applying power management settings.

  • You want to exclude computers that run Windows Server from power management.

Note
If the option Allow users to exclude their device from power management is configured in client settings, users can exclude their own computers from power management by using Software Center.

To find out which computers have been excluded from power management, run the report Computers Excluded. For more information about this report see Computers Excluded in the topic How to Monitor and Plan for Power Management in Configuration Manager.

Important
Power settings that are applied to computers that run Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 are not reverted to their original values, even if you exclude the computer from power management. On later versions of Windows, excluding a computer from power management causes all power settings to be reverted to their original values. You cannot revert individual power settings to their original values.

To exclude a collection of computers from power management

See Also