Question: By default, only the most recently used plan as well as "balanced" are available. How do I display all 3 default power plans? I'd like to avoid third party programs if possible.

Answer: 
Windows 7 has no natural settings to show more than 2 power plans in the system tray. However, you can create shortcuts or hotkeys to switch between your power plans. How-to Geek has a nice article about how to do that: [Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Switch Power Plans.](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/create-a-shortcut-or-hotkey-to-switch-power-plans/)

One of the users in a forum having the same question as you says that this solution is perfect; but each time he ran the shortcut, the command prompt popped up for a second. To prevent this he created a small script. You can see the related post [here](http://forum.notebookreview.com/microsoft-windows-7/417165-more-than-just-2-power-plans-battery-tray-icon-popup-3.html#post5315312).

There is also a Windows sidebar gadget which can do what you want. It's called Power Scheme and can be downloaded from this [page](http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=e0040b09-c1c8-4ad0-b2a4-a3efc8fa850f&bt=1&pl=1).

Although you avoid 3rd party solutions, there is a tool called [Power Plan Assistant for Windows® 7](http://www.powerplan7.com/features.htm) which can do the job as well.

![alt text](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qstQF.jpg)
I'll throw in a late update to this, [Power Scheme Switcher](http://powerschemeswitcher.codeplex.com/), under the MIT license with source code available from the same place. Built in C# on Visual Studio 2012.