How to use Power Management Functions (PowerEnuimerate) to get power settings

Question

I need my application to read things like the amount of time the system will wait before shutting off the display, or going to sleep, or going into hibernate. As far as I can tell, I need to use the Power Management Functions (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa373163%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) In particular, it looks like I need to use the PowerEnumerate method (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372730%28v=vs.85%29.aspx).

I'm really confused about how to do this. First, I'm doing this in C#, and the code looks to be C++. Second, the C++ code seems to not really tell you how to specifically read the different time outs I want.

Note, I'm new to windows programming and C#. Most of my experience has been in Java and Android.

Thanks

Answer 1

I found an example on MSDN for using the PowerEnumerate function in VB.

I have converted the example to C#, and added the Friendly Name to the output of each Video setting in the loop. You can change the GUID_VIDEO_SUBGROUP to one of the other subgroups to see the other settings.

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;

namespace TestProject
{
    class PowerEnumerator
    {
        private static Guid NO_SUBGROUP_GUID = new Guid("fea3413e-7e05-4911-9a71-700331f1c294");
        private static Guid GUID_DISK_SUBGROUP = new Guid("0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442");
        private static Guid GUID_SYSTEM_BUTTON_SUBGROUP = new Guid("4f971e89-eebd-4455-a8de-9e59040e7347");
        private static Guid GUID_PROCESSOR_SETTINGS_SUBGROUP = new Guid("54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00");
        private static Guid GUID_VIDEO_SUBGROUP = new Guid("7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99");
        private static Guid GUID_BATTERY_SUBGROUP = new Guid("e73a048d-bf27-4f12-9731-8b2076e8891f");
        private static Guid GUID_SLEEP_SUBGROUP = new Guid("238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20");
        private static Guid GUID_PCIEXPRESS_SETTINGS_SUBGROUP = new Guid("501a4d13-42af-4429-9fd1-a8218c268e20");

        [DllImport("powrprof.dll")]
        static extern uint PowerEnumerate(
            IntPtr RootPowerKey,
            IntPtr SchemeGuid,
            ref Guid SubGroupOfPowerSetting,
            uint AccessFlags,
            uint Index,
            ref Guid Buffer,
            ref uint BufferSize);

        [DllImport("powrprof.dll")]
        static extern uint PowerGetActiveScheme(
            IntPtr UserRootPowerKey,
            ref IntPtr ActivePolicyGuid);

        [DllImport("powrprof.dll")]
        static extern uint PowerReadACValue(
            IntPtr RootPowerKey,
            IntPtr SchemeGuid,
            IntPtr SubGroupOfPowerSettingGuid,
            ref Guid PowerSettingGuid,
            ref int Type,
            ref IntPtr Buffer,
            ref uint BufferSize
            );

        [DllImport("powrprof.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
        static extern uint PowerReadFriendlyName(
            IntPtr RootPowerKey,
            IntPtr SchemeGuid,
            IntPtr SubGroupOfPowerSettingGuid,
            IntPtr PowerSettingGuid,
            StringBuilder Buffer,
            ref uint BufferSize
            );

        [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
        static extern IntPtr LocalFree(
            IntPtr hMem
            );

        private const uint ERROR_MORE_DATA = 234;

        public static void GetCurrentPowerEnumerateVistaAPI()
        {
            IntPtr activeGuidPtr = IntPtr.Zero;
            try
            {
                uint res = PowerGetActiveScheme(IntPtr.Zero, ref activeGuidPtr);
                if (res != 0)
                    throw new Win32Exception();

                //Get Friendly Name
                uint buffSize = 0;
                StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder();
                Guid subGroupGuid = Guid.Empty;
                Guid powerSettingGuid = Guid.Empty;
                res = PowerReadFriendlyName(IntPtr.Zero, activeGuidPtr,
                    IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, buffer, ref buffSize);

                if (res == ERROR_MORE_DATA)
                {
                    buffer.Capacity = (int)buffSize;
                    res = PowerReadFriendlyName(IntPtr.Zero, activeGuidPtr,
                        IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, buffer, ref buffSize);
                }

                if (res != 0)
                    throw new Win32Exception();

                Console.WriteLine("ReadFriendlyName = " +
                    buffer.ToString());

                //Get the Power Settings
                Guid VideoSettingGuid = Guid.Empty;
                uint index = 0;
                uint BufferSize = Convert.ToUInt32(Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(Guid)));

                while (
                    PowerEnumerate(IntPtr.Zero, activeGuidPtr, ref GUID_VIDEO_SUBGROUP,
                    18, index, ref VideoSettingGuid, ref BufferSize) == 0)
                {
                    uint size = 4;
                    IntPtr temp = IntPtr.Zero;
                    int type = 0;
                    res = PowerReadACValue(IntPtr.Zero, activeGuidPtr, IntPtr.Zero,
                        ref VideoSettingGuid, ref type, ref temp, ref size);

                    IntPtr pSubGroup = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Marshal.SizeOf(GUID_VIDEO_SUBGROUP));
                    Marshal.StructureToPtr(GUID_VIDEO_SUBGROUP, pSubGroup, false);
                    IntPtr pSetting = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(Marshal.SizeOf(VideoSettingGuid));
                    Marshal.StructureToPtr(VideoSettingGuid, pSetting, false);

                    uint builderSize = 200;
                    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder((int)builderSize);
                    res = PowerReadFriendlyName(IntPtr.Zero, activeGuidPtr,
                        pSubGroup, pSetting, builder, ref builderSize);
                    Console.WriteLine(builder.ToString() + " = " + temp.ToString());

                    index++;
                }
            }
            finally
            {
                if (activeGuidPtr != IntPtr.Zero)
                {
                    IntPtr res = LocalFree(activeGuidPtr);
                    if (res != IntPtr.Zero)
                        throw new Win32Exception();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The resulting output from this code: