Configuring Windows 7 to hibernate on low UPS battery power

If you have an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to provide battery backup for a Microsoft Windows system in the event of a power outage, you may want to change the default setting for the action that Windows takes when the battery charge is nearing depletion. The default setting is to put the system in sleep mode where the system saves the memory state to disk and stops most activities on the system, so that the system is using very little power. But, if the battery charge becomes totally depleted, if a system is in sleep mode when that happens, you will lose any unsaved work. You can reconfigure Windows to hibernate the system, instead. When the system goes into hibernation, the contents of memory are saved to disk in such a way that when the system is rebooted, you will be back to the state it was in before it was hibernated, so you haven't lost unsaved work, such as open documents in a word processor, spreadsheet, etc. To change the behavior for a Windows 7 system, take the following steps:
  1. Click on the Windows Start button, choose Control Panel, then Hardware and Sound, then Power Options.
  2. Under Select a Power Plan, choose the power plan you want then click on "Change plan settings".
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    Select a power plan

  3. Click on Change advanced power settings.

    Change plan settings

  4. Click on the plus sign (+) next to Battery to view the options for that entry.

    Power Options

  5. Click on the plus sign next to "Low battery action"

    Battery options

  6. Click on "Do nothing" next to "On battery".

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    Low battery action

  7. Select "Hibernate" for the "On battery" option.

    On battery - Hibernate

    You may also want to change the "Plugged in" setting to "Hibernate" as well, in case there should be an issue with the battery becoming defective at some point. Likewise you could have the "Low battery notification" option set to "on" for both "On battery" and "Plugged in".

  8. Click on the OK button.
  9. You can then close the "Change settings for the plan" window.