Windows 11 Quick Settings Battery Icon

Question

Windows 11 Quick Settings Battery Icon

Mark Bewley 51

Windows 11 Explorer Desktop appears to not work properly if a battery is added after login.

I am validating a custom UPS battery driver. It is based on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/samples/microsoft/windows-driver-samples/simbatt-simulated-battery-driver-sample/

The workflow we have adopted means the battery driver may not appear in Device Manager until after a user has logged in.

This is because we require some valid communication with the UPS before calling, SwDeviceCreate(). The communication is done via an application that is run in user space, under the logged in user, which in turn communicates with a service application that can make the "elevated" call into the kernel.

The battery icon is never shown in the System Tray. There are some circumstances where it can appear (after a while) in the lower-left corner of the Quick Settings dialog - I have not done enough testing to determine a pattern.

The battery appears in the Settings, System | Power & battery screens. Notification messages are shown on the low and critical battery capacity levels.

It is just the Explorer Desktop this is not displaying a battery status to the user.

If I use Task Manager to kill and restart explorer.exe, a battery icon does appear in the System Tray and disappears and reappears as I close and create the driver entry - but it still takes a while before the icon appears in the lower-left corner of the Quick Settings dialog.

Until the restart of the desktop process the icon is never shown in the System Tray.

Similarly, on SwDeviceClose() it takes a while before the icon disappears from the lower-left corner of the Quick Settings dialog. It does change to an X image (but reports 100%).

This testing is being performed on Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2024, build 26100.4061. I have not checked the behaviour on other "consumer" releases of Windows 11.

Previous testing was performed on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021, which did not present any of these issues, although the Desktop Experience is very different.

As this is a niche case, whether anyone else has experienced this.

If it were to be reported\escalated to Microsoft, I am not sure what the process would be to do this.

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Answer 1

Henry Mai 1,970 Independent Advisor

Hi, I'm Henry! I will help you with this.

Here's a breakdown of potential causes, things to investigate:

Potential Causes & Areas to Investigate:

Shell Notification/Refresh Logic Change in Windows 11:
- Explorer might perform an initial scan for battery devices at login/startup and then rely on specific notifications that your SwDeviceCreate() flow (or the underlying PnP system's notification to the shell) isn't triggering correctly or promptly for the already running Explorer instance.
Timing of SwDeviceCreate():
- Creating the device after the user has logged in and Explorer is fully initialized is the critical factor. The shell might have already "decided" there's no battery.
Driver Capabilities & Properties:
- Are there any specific PnP device capabilities or properties that the Windows 11 shell might query to determine if it should display a battery icon, beyond the basic battery class presence? While unlikely to be the root cause if Settings sees it, it's a remote possibility.

Troubleshooting & Further Investigation:

Programmatic Shell Refresh (From your Service):
- Since your service has elevated privileges, after SwDeviceCreate succeeds, you could try programmatically telling the shell to refresh.
- The way is SHChangeNotify(SHCNE_ASSOCCHANGED, SHCNF_FLUSHNOWAIT, NULL, NULL); which forces a lot of the shell to re-evaluate things.
- You could also try broadcasting a WM_SETTINGCHANGE message. For example: SendMessageTimeout(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, 0, (LPARAM)L"Policy", SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG, 5000, NULL); or specifically for power-related settings if such a string exists.
Event Tracing for Windows (ETW):
- Monitor ETW traces focusing on:
- PnP events: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP
- Power events: Microsoft-Windows-PowerCfg, Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
- Shell events: This is trickier, but look for providers related to Explorer, ShellExperienceHost, or SystemTray.
- Capture traces during the scenario:
1. Start tracing.
2. Log in.
3. Trigger your application to call SwDeviceCreate().
4. Observe icon behavior.
5. Kill and restart explorer.exe.
6. Observe icon behavior.
7. Trigger SwDeviceClose().
8. Stop tracing.
- Compare the events when the icon doesn't appear vs. when it does after an Explorer restart. Look for specific notifications that Explorer might be missing or ignoring.
API Monitor / Process Monitor:
- Use Process Monitor (Sysinternals) to filter on explorer.exe. Look for registry queries or file accesses related to power, battery, or system icons when the device is created. See what happens differently before and after the explorer.exe restart.
- API Monitor could show what Windows APIs Explorer is calling related to device enumeration or UI updates.
Check SW_DEVICE_CREATE_INFO:
- Review all parameters passed to SwDeviceCreate, especially pszInstanceId, pszzHardwareIds, pszzCompatibleIds, and CapabilityFlags. Ensure they are absolutely correct and consistent. Perhaps a subtle change in how Win11 interprets these for shell purposes.

Please do share if you find a solution.

Mark Bewley 51 Reputation points

2025-06-08T20:42:58.1733333+00:00

Thanks @Henry Mai for your suggestions. SHChangeNotify and SendMessageTimeout do not seem to help here.

May have to accept the "issues" with desktop UI integration - we are going to include our own System Tray icon in the short, to mid, term.
Mark Bewley 51 Reputation points

2025-06-11T16:30:50.32+00:00

I have been doing some adjustments to work around the Windows 11 behaviour.

The service is now set to call SwDeviceCreate on start, so the battery driver exists before the desktop loads, and the icon is displayed.

I have then set the user application to trigger the removal of the battery driver if communication with the UPS fails. I does mean the battery icon will be shown for a period in the System Tray before it is removed.

However, if communication with the UPS is restored it readds the battery driver and it reappears in the System Tray.

For our usage case the UPS will always be connected (or not, if option is not used) - but have to test the failure cases.
Mark Bewley 51 Reputation points

2025-06-11T16:40:34.75+00:00

I have also investigated the capability of our driver to report STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE, so I can keep the device\driver showing in Device Manager, but Windows can detect and report "no battery present".

Again, this it does under Windows 10 but under Windows 11 it does much the same as above.

If I start the driver with it reporting STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE, then the icon does not show in the System Tray on login. Then when the battery driver starts reporting battery values the icon does not appear in the System Tray.

Equally, if the driver reports battery values at login, the icon is displayed. I can make the icon disappear by reporting STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE then return once battery values are reported.
Henry Mai 1,970 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-06-18T09:43:58.3433333+00:00

Hello Mark,

Apologies for the delayed response. You have taken the correct steps to isolate this complex issue, and your conclusions are well-founded.

Based on your comprehensive testing, this does not appear to be a bug in your driver but rather a behavioral regression in Windows 11's power management UI (explorer.exe) compared to Windows 10. Your experiments have effectively demonstrated the root cause.

Key Observations:

Initial State "Snapshot": Windows 11 Shell performs a one-time snapshot of the system's power state upon explorer.exe initialization at user login. If no active battery device is detected at that exact moment, the UI (System Tray & Quick Settings) enters a "no-battery" state and does not generate corresponding UI elements.

Insufficient Shell Notification Handling: Standard PnP notifications from SwDeviceCreate after login are correctly processed at the system level—both the PnP Manager and Power Manager recognize the battery. However, these notifications are insufficient to trigger a UI update dynamically. Unlike Windows 10, Windows 11’s Shell does not adjust its state in response to these post-login notifications, requiring an explorer.exe restart for proper detection.

Confirmation via STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE Test: Your test provides strong evidence that the issue is tied to the initial device state when the Shell loads. Mimicking a "no battery present" state caused the UI to remain unchanged, reinforcing that Windows 11 does not dynamically update battery visibility once initialized.

At this time, we do not have a workaround or solution for this regression. Your findings accurately highlight the issue.
Mark Bewley 51 Reputation points

2025-06-18T10:00:12.84+00:00

Thanks @Henry Mai for your feedback. Now we know the current behaviour of Windows 10

Is this Q&A enough to potentially get the issue raising within Microsoft for future consideration of resolving? Or do I need to do any subsequent actions?

Mark
Henry Mai 1,970 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-06-19T01:55:30.6966667+00:00

Hello Mark,

While this Q&A thread serves as valuable public documentation, it is not sufficient on its own to formally enter Microsoft's internal bug-tracking system. The most effective way to report a bug like this is through the Feedback Hub application in Windows.

For guidance on submitting feedback, you can reference this link: Microsoft Feedback Hub.

Submitting the issue through this formal channel ensures it becomes an actionable work item for the relevant engineering team.
Mark Bewley 51 Reputation points

2025-06-23T15:21:31.9066667+00:00

Thanks, I have started a feedback report, https://aka.ms/AAwt1ng

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Windows 11 Quick Settings Battery Icon

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