The kernel-mode battery class driver, battc.sys, provides device-independent battery support and exports support routines for use by all device-specific battery miniclass drivers.

The battery class driver takes care of the following tasks for miniclass drivers:

• Performing a large part of miniclass driver initialization, including allocating system resources and space for the miniclass driver's class data
• Handling device control IRPs (IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL) that specify battery class IOCTLs. (See the Microsoft Windows SDK for information about these IOCTLs.)
• Serializing requests to the battery device
• Administering DC power policy for the operating system
• Freeing system resources if the miniclass driver is unloaded
• Handling certain standard battery WMI classes

See Battery Miniclass Driver Routines for descriptions of the routines that the battery class driver exports to battery miniclass drivers.