Windows Vista required many to purchase new hardware to run the sophisticated graphics interface known as Aero Glass, but for laptop users complaining about poor battery performance in Vista, Aero may be the culprit. 

The best battery saving tip for notebook users would of course be to disable Aero, but in that case why spend the money upgrading at all?

CNet [reports][1] this morning that some hardware manufacturers, like HP, are altering the default power management setting in Vista in an effort to overcome Vista's power hungry Aero Glass interface.

Of course with any system upgrade, such as the move from Windows XP to Vista, one expects a certain level of increase in power consumption. 

But unfortunately for Microsoft, in the time between the two systems the laptop has overtaken the desktop in popularity and the problem is no longer just a few extra bucks on your electric bill.

In my own experience, running Vista on a Macbook via Boot Camp, I get dramatically less time out of a full battery charge when booted into Vista versus Mac OS X. 

I generally have about five apps open on either platform, including Firefox, Thunderbird, Notepad (BBEdit in OS X), NewsGator or NetNewsWire and occasionally Photoshop CS3. In OS X that gets me about four to four and half hours of work time, in Vista it's more like three.

I had been assuming that perhaps the Boot Camp software or Mac specific drivers were dragging down my battery life, but after reading about others with similar problems, I'm not so sure.

I'm curious if Compiler readers have had problems with battery life after switching to Vista. Let us know your experiences in the comments below.

[1]: http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-6181366.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news "Vista draining laptop batteries, patience"