What identifies my system as a Laptop to Snow Leopard

[DutchNeb58]

I was attempting to solve a power/ battery Icon related issue with a a rather well known contributor on another site. He was getting rather frustrated and his final message to me was, "Ensure that your system is identified as a laptop."

Which led me to wonder about some of the other little quirks about my system...the lack of trackpad preference pane, no power/battery icon, screen not waking after sleep, even when the system does ...

When Snow Leopard is loading, or has finished, how does it identify that my system is a laptop model, as opposed to a desktop, and that a few extra tools need to be loaded as a result? Once installation is complete, is there a way to identify my laptop, so it coughs up those extras?

Any ideas or explanations?