I would like some help with a cheesy, but (in my opinion acceptable) attempt at a hack.
It's based on the observation that once you have the remote paired to the PC, if you yank out the batteries OR the bluetooth dongle and then put them back in,
the remote initially starts in low-power mode and doesn't begin to pull the battery-killing 3mA current until a button is actually pressed. I am assuming that the remote is indeed in low-power mode by merely measuring the current from the batteries with a multimeter.
So we can do one of two things to get into low-power mode:
Option 1. If you have built a switch into the remote (like
here), you can switch off the remote, wait for about 5 seconds until the connection is severed, and then switch the remote back on.
Option 2. Disable and then re-enable the PC bluetooth radio, which can be done physically or through the Device Manager.
With option 2 as the method of choice, it is now a simple matter of doing this through EventGhost.
Windows provides a program called 'DevCon' as a free download, which is a command-line utility that functions as an alternative to Device Manager.
You could then just use: devcon disable "HARDWARE_ID"or devcon enable "HARDWARE_ID".
My problem is that DevCon requires Administrator Privileges to run, so EventGhost keep giving me a "The requested operation requires elevation" error.
I could create a batch file with "runas /savecred" commands but from what I can gather this is a security risk.
A search on the forums did show someone using CPAU.
http://eventghost.org/forum/viewtopic.p ... e082#p4652
What I am getting to is, that I would like any suggestions on an elegant way to disable hardware through EventGhost.
It seems to me that this would be the last hurdle to overcome the short battery life, regardless of 32-bit/64-bit os or widcomm/microsoft stack.
Thank you.
REFERENCES:
On getting the latest version of DevCon: Download Windows Driver Kit (WDK), and install just the Tools subfolder. You can then get both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of DevCon.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wik ... n-exe.aspx
Examples on how to use DevCon to disable devices:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... tern_tools
How to run programs as Administrator
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11 ... rator.html
I wish I had this 'problem'

Unfortunately it seems Power Management Tabs are only for built-in bluetooth devices.
http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/ ... n-no-more/
Dear Sony, look at this. Firmware solution to battery draining on Apple bluetooth keyboard.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4010
System: Win 7 Pro SP1, Bluetooth USB Dongle IOGEAR GBU421, EventGhost 0.3.7.r1486.