Detect if application is running on laptop [duplicate]

Answer 1

Use this struct : SYSTEM_POWER_STATUS, and check the value of ACLineStatus field.

• ACLineStatus = 0 => The system is not using AC power > Laptop + battery
• ACLineStatus = 1 => The system is using AC power => Laptop + AC
• ACLineStatus = 255 => AC power status is unknown => Desktop

Disclaimer : Try experimenting with these. I'm not claiming if they're reliable. But they're almost correct.

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EDIT:

Use GetSystemPowerStatus to get the value of the above mentioned structure.

By the way, you can also experiment with the other fields of the structure; maybe you can find some useful pattern, giving you some combination of values of different fields to help you reliably detect if application is running on laptop or not.

Answer 2

Here's a bunch of other answers and links you might find useful for this question:

How to detect when the laptop is running on batteries?

How can I tell if a user is using a laptop

The latter also discusses WMI, while the answer is centred around .NET you can use WMI from Delphi.

Answer 3

I don't think there's a standard way to check whether the application runs on a laptop, but I think there's also no standard rationale for needing to know this.

The point is also that a laptop is no so much different from a desktop: there are laptops that get never moved, and I guess it would be possible to build a desktop with an embedded UPS (seen as a battery?)

I think you should find out if it's a laptop using the features you need to check in a laptop:

• Do you want to know if it's a laptop because your application needs to behave differently if the computer may be moved around? Then check if it has got a battery plugged in.

• Do you want to know if it's a laptop in order to see whether hardware can be modified? In this case check the motherboard model or ask with a dialog box.

• Do you need to check it in order to know if it will burn to death if used too intensively for too long? Just monitor the temperature...

Answer 4

The MSDN discusses API for Power and Device Aware applications here

You could also check other things like:

• Is battery connected
• Is track pad connected
• Is PC Card installed Is
• Has a certain type of CPU (low power, Atom, etc)
• Has a screen unique to laptop.
• laptop hardrive is 3.5"

If a certain number of the above is true then you can assume laptop.

You could also just ask the user at installation....

Answer 5

I don't believe there is a reliable way to detect this.

Answer 6

Apparently, the hidden problem is that the company laptops typically have not enough memory, but the company desktops do. To address this specific problem, compare memory used against memory installed: EnumProcesses() and GetProcessMemoryInfo tells you the first; GetPhysicallyInstalledSystemMemory() tells you the second.

If they're too close, you can inform the user that there are 73 running processes using 2.5 GB, but only 2GB RAM is present. This is a valid reason for your program not to start.