A. Windows Vista lets you use Group Policy to manage power options, but XP doesn't. The Energy Star Group, which is part of the US government, has released an add-on to your environment that allows the configuration of power management options via Group Policy and a small client-side service. You can download the program, called EZ GPO, at http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_pm_ez_gpo . The download includes documentation that walks you through the installation steps, which basically consist of
- Deploying a client-side service that's responsible for reading Group Policy settings and registry keys and making changes to the local power options
- Loading a Group Policy template that facilitates the setting of values that are read by the client service to implement power management options
Essentially the Group Policy template sets integer values that the client-side service can read and then make power management changes. This local service is needed because power options are binary registry values under XP and you can't currently set binary values via Group Policy.
