If you own an HP laptop and would like to check your battery health status, you can download a little tool at HP's website. The only problem is that it's meant for Windows XP and if you try to run it in Windows Vista, it will give an error message asking for the file HPQNT.dll
The solution to this is to right click on the sp41862.exe file and choose the Compatibility tab, then run in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 2. Then when you go to run the exe, right click on it again and choose Run as administrator. Once the program extracts all the files to the directory you choose, do the same thing for the setup.exe file. It should then install the HP Battery Check Tool without any problems. Run the tool from the new shortcut in the start menu and it should let you know how your battery is doing.
Friday, March 13, 2009
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8 comments:
Has worked for me, but I got an error while trying to uninstall it. Solution: One have to go to C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\ (is a hidden folder by default!) and search there for the appropriate setup.exe (look for the date e.g.). Select "Properties" and choose compatibility to windows xp sp2 -> after that the uninstallation works
Cool thanks, I never thought about uninstalling having to be compatible too
Thanks Mikazo. I already did the Run Compatibility thing but then I forgot that the extracted Setup.exe will be in C:swsetup/sp41862. I got lost n gave up after that. After reading your instructions, I went to retrieve the extracted Setup.exe in compatibility and it's done now. LOL. Thanks again. 1 click on google ads for u.
I never had a problem getting the battery checker to work, but the problem I have is, no matter what battery I check, it tells me that every battery is in failure. I have a friend who recently called me to tell me that she got the same error on her computer, which she has had for six months, and HP wanted her to not only send her battery to them, but her entire computer, unless she wanted to pay for the new battery, then have the money refunded to her when they got her old one. Now, I am hearing of other people running into the same issue, and it is recent. The last time HP health check came up, I didn't have any problems, my battery showed fine, but something must have updated, and it is saying that I have all kinds of problems with my computer, including things that I had fixed, when it told me to fix them a few months ago. I really don't think it knows what is going on! I still get four hours of battery time out of each of my extended batteries, so I know it isn't the batteries!
Debbie, I wouldn't worry about it if your batteries are working fine. I used to work as a technician for Staples and my supervisor had me uninstall HP Health Check and Total Care and all that on all new HP computers we set up. I just tried HP battery health check on a brand new (two week old) 12-cell battery from HP and it said it could not detect the battery. If you notice problems with your hardware, then maybe have it looked at, but otherwise you should be fine.
Hi, thank you for the hints about the installation: I was stuck...
After the installation I ran it from the Control Panel and the first run gave me an error screen (something like "...InvalidOperationException: Couldn't get process information from remote machine...") and the tool was not detecting any battery.
When I closed it I got a message window from Vista asking me if the Control Panel worked properly and if I wanted to run the hpbat.cpl with the compatibility options for this version of Vista.
I accepted to run it with these settings and the next time I ran it from the Control Panel it asked me for the permissions to run a legacy CPL with high privileges and it detected correctly the battery.
Now if I run it from the Start Menu shortcut it still gives the error and doesn't detect battery while if I run it from the Control Panel it works fine (sometimes it says for a moment that the battery is unhealthy and I have to replace it, but it changes quickly to good status).
Hope this helps...
Thanks so much for posting this!
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