14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft rolled out the Windows RT 8.1 update on October 17, but the company pulled it from the Store shortly after that due to a number of issues discovered on several devices, including its very own Surface RT.
Now it turns out that the new update was delivered with a major bug as well, as several Surface RT owners have reported decreased battery life after deploying Windows RT 8.1.
Surprisingly, Redmond hasn’t publicly confirmed this issue, but instead released a short workaround in a FAQ page regarding the Surface RT battery.
“If you updated Surface RT from Windows RT 8.1 Preview to Windows RT 8.1, you may notice a decrease in battery life. During the update, the wireless adapter power policy isn’t migrated. Instead, the power policy is set to a default value that consumes more power both during use and in the connected standby state,” Microsoft explained.
In addition, Microsoft has rolled out detailed instructions on how to restore the wireless adapter power policy to the correct settings, thus fixing the issues before the company provides users with a fully-working patch.
Step 1: Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search. (If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Search.) Step 2: In the search box, enter command prompt. Step 3: Touch and hold (or right-click) Command Prompt to bring up the context menu. Tap or click Run as administrator. Step 4: On the User Account Control dialog box, tap or click Yes. Step 5: At the Administrator: Command Prompt, enter the following: powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 3 Step 6: Then enter powercfg -setactive scheme_current
There are no details on when the company might release a patch to address the problems, so in case you’ve moved to Windows RT 8.1 and are now experiencing the same battery issues, make sure you follow the instructions above.