Windows does not see APC UPS as a battery

[kamild_]

I have the APC Back-UPS XS 1400U. Despite the fact that:

- In the device manager, I see "APC UPS" in the "Batteries" section and "American Power Conversion USB UPS" in the "Human Interface Devices" section,

- I have PowerChute PE installed, which fully recognizes the UPS,

Windows 11 does not recognize the UPS as a battery, meaning it does not show up in the taskbar, battery-related settings in the power plan (processor power management) have no effect once the APC loses line power, and BatteryInfoView shows completely no information about the battery.

I know this is a problem with my Windows installation, because after I installed a second instance of Windows 11 on a secondary partition, system sees the APC as a battery. So something's wrong specifically with my current/main instance of Windows, which I do not wish to reinstall just for that.

Any ideas what could that be caused by?

[BillP · Accepted solution]

@kamild_ 

When you install PowerChute Personal Edition the installer disables native power options so the battery information will not be displayed on the task bar. If you want to use the native power option you must uninstall PowerChute and switch the drive from APC UPS to HID UPS. See Schneider Electric FAQ159743

What to do if the system is missing native shutdown battery options / How to restore HID UPS device ...

[kamild_]

Thank you, I followed the FAQ (strange I couldn't Google my way to it) and now it works the way I wanted it to.

It's a shame this is something PowerChute forces you to resign, because I like its energy consumption monitoring features. Perhaps there's a different application I could use instead of PowerChute? Any recommendations?

[BillP]

@kamild_ 

Try the new PowerChute. It is better that native and the Personal Edition.

https://www.se.com/us/en/product-range/137943580-powerchute-serial-shutdown

This version of PowerChute replaces PowerChute Business Edition and PowerChute Personal Edition for Windows OS only. Other OS will be supported over time. For a Back-UPS, only USB communication is supported. 

The version is web-based—the same as the PowerChute Business Edition Agent since the release of Agent version 9.5. 

NOTE: This version will also disable native power options. 

[kamild_]

Thank you for the news about the new PowerChute. Although if this solution also forcibly disables these power options, I'll give it a pass for now. I'll be happy to try it out if this changes, though. 

[kamild_]

Thanks for your input, but the issue has already been solved. The faulty APC software was the issue, not anything deeper within my Windows installation. Removing it solved my problem.