Configuring the mobility settings

Computers play an important part in people's daily lives. The ability to carry out computing tasks at any time and in any place has become a necessity for most users. Mobile computers are portable devices that you can use for work. They include the following devices:

• Laptops and notebooks
• Tablets

Computing devices need electrical power, regardless of whether they are in use. A priority for users of these kinds of hardware is to be able to conserve battery life. If users are on the road or in a remote location, it is important for them to know how to configure the power settings in Windows 10 to meet their needs.

In this section, we will talk about how to configure the basic power options, power plans, and presentation settings.

Understanding the basic power plans

By default, there are three preconfigured power plans:

• Balanced
• Power saver
• High performance

You can adjust and save any of these power plans or create your own power plan. The following table provides details about each plan:

Table 3.1 - Basic power plan types

Now that you understand the different basic power plans, we will move on to configuring them.

Configuring the power plans

To open the Power & sleep page, go to Start | Settings | System | Power & sleep.

There are different options available on the Power & sleep page. The options that are available on your device depend on the device's hardware configuration. For example, on a laptop or other mobile device, you will have the following configurable options, with a drop-down list to set various minutes and hours (from 1 minute to 5 hours). You can also choose Never to disable a setting:

• The Screen setting: You can choose time intervals under the On battery power, turn off after option. You can also do the same for the When plugged in, turn off after option.
• The Sleep setting: You will see various time options under the On battery power, PC goes to sleep after option. You also have the same options for the When plugged in, PC goes to sleep after option.
• The Network connection setting: You will only find one option here, which is When my PC is asleep and on battery power, disconnect from the network.

  Important Note

  The Network connection power setting is only available on laptops and tablets.

You can also click on the Additional power settings hyperlink, which you will find on the right-hand side of the Power & sleep page under Related settings.

To view more power settings, open the Power Options configuration page in the Hardware and Sound section of the Control Panel. The Power Options configuration page includes many options, including the following:

• The Choose what the power button does setting
• The Choose what closing the lid does setting
• The Create a power plan setting
• The Change when the computer sleeps setting

  Important Note

  Not all devices have the settings mentioned in the previous list. Several of these settings apply to particular hardware that may not be present on all devices.

The Power Options screen also lists the default and custom power plans. When you click Change plan settings and access a power plan, the Change advanced power settings option becomes available. This opens the Power Options window, providing a list of options that you can expand and individually select. These options include the settings for the battery and the hard disk and the graphics, multimedia, and USB settings.

Let's now move on to a different mobility setting.

Configuring the Presentation Settings

Windows 10 includes a utility called Windows Mobility Center. This utility can be used to configure various mobility settings. One of them is the presentation settings.

If you are presenting a PowerPoint presentation in a meeting or during an event, then you probably want to turn on the presentation settings on your Windows 10 device. When you enable the presentation settings, the following settings are applied temporarily:

• Pop-ups and notifications area pop-ups are disabled.
• Windows 10 is prevented from going into sleep mode.
• Windows 10 is prevented from turning the screen off.
• The display background and volume settings that are defined in the presentation settings are used.

You can access Windows Mobility Center by following these steps:

1. Right-click on the Start menu or press the Win + X shortcut keys.
2. Click on Mobility Center.
3. Under Presentation Settings, click Turn on to enable presentation mode.
4. To customize the Presentation Mode settings, double-click on the tray icon:
   

   Figure 3.14 - The Presentation Settings tray icon

5. The Presentation Settings window then opens:

Figure 3.15 - Presentation Settings window

Here, you can turn on presentation mode and tweak other settings, such as turning off the screen saver, setting the volume, and showing another background.

In this section, you have learned about basic power plans and how to configure custom power plans. You also learned how you can use the Presentation Settings during a presentation and how to open Windows Mobility Center. Now, let's look at how to customize the Windows desktop.