Small, non-resource intensive, unbelievable useful, and free. What else could a body ask for?

Vista Battery Saver is one of the most useful utilities I have on my taskbar at the moment. It’s a small app that runs in the background (at about 4MB or so), waiting until the proper moment to jump into play…and believe me, there are many times that I thank my lucky stars that its there.

I originally got turned on to it by this thread over at Notebookreview.com (Number 20)- a must read by the way, if you’re a Vista notebook user.

As it happens, this utility was written specifically for Vista, and its function is simple:

Whenever you plug your charger in/out, VBS automatically turns SideBar and Aero off/on. More importantly, however, it has the ability to switch power profiles upon charger in/out as well. This means that instead of having to manually switch power profiles back and forth, it will be done for you automatically.

For me, the savings in time alone make it worth, not to mention the battery life savings of having SideBar/Aero turned off automatically!

To grab VBS, head on over here to download it for free!

(Photo credit on beginning of post to gonzolo_ar).