Every new version of Windows is trumpeted as being faster and more efficient; some even claim to deliver optimisations meaning your laptop battery will last longer than ever. However, the strange issue that is currently being talked about on Reddit, definitely sounds like a bug rather than a feature – as Redditors are reporting (spotted via BetaNews) the Windows 11 taskbar battery icon showing charge levels beyond the usual limit of 100 per cent.
At the weekend a Redditor posted a screenshot of their battery level icon reporting the cells were 103 per cent charged. Later on, ‘Zondax’ updated the post to say it had reached 104 per cent. The reactions were a mixture of amusement, some jokey comments about Windows starter/home/pro editions, but the underlying feeling was that there could be a bit of danger here. If there isn’t a reporting bug, something could be amiss with the system battery power electronics, and we all know the dangers of that.
On Sunday another Redditor ‘GlitchyDragon65’ shared an even more eyebrow raising screenshot. Their Windows 11 laptop apparently charged the battery to 115 per cent and proudly popped up an alert, “Battery 1: fully charged 115%”. Scrolling through the comments, you can see someone else say that their battery wasn’t fully charged until it reached 126 per cent…
To both the above Redditors, Microsoft Windows engineering team member Jen Gentleman replied in the comments. Gentleman mentioned that she had seen several reports of this weird battery level icon behaviour across Windows 11 dev channel builds. She went on to assure the quizzical Redditors that “We’re looking into it, there have been a few reports across recent dev channel builds,” before going on to encourage anyone seeing such behaviour to report it in the Windows feedback hub.
In a Tweeted reply to the BetaNews article on this topic, Microsoft Engineering Team member, Anuneet, asserted that the bug is being looked at presently, and Microsoft will “fix it as soon as possible.”
