Intel Processor Power Management Utility
Summary
“Intel Processor Power Management Utility” is not a utility, but a set of settings to optimize processor power management. By applying these settings, the device has longer battery life, less thermal output (less heat & less fan noise) and gets more responsive in certain scenarios. It is deployed via a Provisioning package, thus it will not show in “Add/Remove Programs”/”Apps & features” but will show under Start > Settings > Accounts > Access work or school > Add or remove a provisioning package.
Now let’s have a look at the details and explore this PPM together. The driver download page from Dell Latitude will state the following description for this tool:
“This package contains the Intel Processor Power Management utility. The Intel Processor Power Management utility helps lower the system temperature and fan activity through reduced CPU power consumption by low Quality of Service (QoS) threads.”
Please also note that this driver is “Recommended” by Dell, so you should have a look at it and apply it in your next update cycle if possible.
Note: Depending on your model you might need to use a different download link. Please lookup your systems model driver page and look for this tool under “Systems Management” Category.
Once downloaded you can run the file in the Dell Update Package Format (DUP) and it gives you two options. One for “Install” and one for “Extract”.
Let’s use “Extract” first and have a look what inside the DUP. Inside the DUP you will see four files:
The first file is a batch file. Inside the file we see the following syntax:
We now understand what would happen if instead of “Extract” you would have choose the “Install” option. Basically, it will execute a tool called “provtool” to install a provisioning package (PPKG).
PPM & PPKG
Before we continue with our exploration, let’s make sure we understand PPKGs and PPM.PPKG
PPKGs may sound familiar if you know Dell’s Factory provisioning service for VMware Workspace ONE (a.k.a. Dropship offline in VMware documentation). Within your UEM console you would export a set of applications, that Dell would provision in the factory for you. This enables modern deployment approach and shipment of your devices from the factory directly to your end users without any intervention from your IT staff. The end user doesn’t have to wait for the applications to install and is ready to work. See the following Youtube-Video called “Drop Ship Provisioning of a Dell Device with Workspace ONE: User Onboarding Experience” for an example of this approach from an end users’ perspective.
Another well-known tool leveraging PPKGs is Microsoft’s Windows Configuration Designer. Microsoft describes the tool as follows:
“Configure Windows devices without imaging. Use the Windows Configuration Designer App to simplify deployment of Windows devices at your organization. WCD allows configuration of many aspects of Windows devices including - Active Directory or Azure Active Directory domain join, Device name, Connect to Wi-Fi, enroll into Management, and install applications.”
Microsoft provides several ways to handle these PPKGs. I would recommend you have a look at “Apply a provisioning package”article found on Microsoft Docs for more details incl. PowerShell cmdlets.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a documentation for “provtool”. However, it seems to be part of the Windows operating system. Let’s try the tool without the batch file and see what happens:
Once executed it will show the following pop-up message:
When you click on “Yes, add it”, it will apply the PPKG. To verify installation of the PPKG please look at “Provisioning Packages” in Windows Settings:
PPM
Now we understand PPKGs and need to link this to PPM. When you look up PPM in Microsoft Docs you will find several articles (mainly targeted at OEMs) around Power Management via PPKGs. For example, the article “Processor power management options overview” states:
“The Windows 10 processor power management (PPM) algorithms implement OS-level functionality that allows the OS to efficiently use the available processing resources on a platform by balancing the user's expectations of performance and energy efficiency.”
Another Microsoft Docs Article states a similar explanation to PPM as the short description found at the Dell support website:
“This facility can help to improve CPU efficiency and thus extend battery life. In addition, this process can assist in reducing CPU power consumption while operating on AC power to reduce thermal output which can lead to high fan noise, or even thermal throttling.”
In Summary this approach is a modern way to configure Processor power management.
Installation PPM
Beside of using the installer you could extract the files and use PowerShell to install the PPKG
Detection
RegistryYou can look up registry to detect installation of PPM. There are two location you could leverage:First option would be HKLM\SOFTWARE\DELL\ManageableUpdatePackage\ThermalPpkg
**NOTE: **This key may not show on all system models
Second option would be HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Provisioning\PackageInfo\{%PackageID%}
PowerShellYou can also query the PPKG via PowerShell. In my following example it is easy, because only one package is installed:
WIP
Author(s) - "Intel Processor Power Management Utility" :
Mesut Kaptanoğlu
**Author(s) - "Thermal" : **
