Aerofoil is another program that can help extend Windows Vista laptop battery life by turning off Windows Aero and the Windows Sidebar.

Aerofoil does not rely on the Microsoft .net Framework on the other hand which is probably the most important factor. The computer memory footprint of Aerofoil is therefor much smaller than that of the other program. Plus, it does not require that a specific Microsoft .Net Framework version is installed on the computer to function at all.

The program can be selected to run at startup. It will place a icon in the system tray which can be used to quickly access the available options seen above. It is probably a good idea to have this or any of the other tools running on Vista laptops that run on battery.

Update: Aerofoil has been updated lately. It now supports both Windows Vista and Windows 7. The program’s feature set has also been extended with the more recent updates. In particular, it can be used for the following purposes:

• Disable Aero Glass manually
• Manage the Windows Aero user interface
• Manage power plans of the operating system
• Manage the sidebar of Windows Vista
• Enable a quick hibernate button.

The program has not been tested extensively under Windows 7. The developer notes however that it should provide the same functionality on that operating system.

Vista Battery Saver is a software program that has been specifically designed to deal with the issue of faster battery drain in Windows Vista. It gives the user options at hand to turn off the Windows Aero interface and the Windows Vista Sidebar.

Options are to turn off the features whenever the laptop is running on battery, to keep the function activated or to turn it off whenever the battery level reaches a set limit. Vista Battery Saver provides access to the Vista power plans which can be configured from within the interface.

Users who are unsure if the Vista Battery Saver application is reducing battery drain on their laptop running Windows Vista should do the following: Clock the time it takes to completely drain the laptop’s battery without running Vista Battery Saver, charge the battery again and do the same with the application running. It is important to perform the same tasks – or none at all – to be able to compare the results.