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WhyReboot?
ExodusDev:
How about adding something to the program that warns,
"Warning: You've managed to get a ton of programs hanging in memory that probably shouldn't be there and eating memory and disk cache. Your computer will keep getting slower until you do a restart!"
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But seriously, any way to add something that could check for the issues that cause this type of slowdown?
Maybe a baseline at startup, and then warn when some limit is reached?
<snip>
Am I being silly? :-\
-springro (December 21, 2006, 03:13 PM)
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No, I don't think you are being silly in wanting something like this. I'm not sure it fits the 'mission' of WhyReboot - that is, to tell you if an installer really did do something that justifies a reboot. (Perhaps I mis-named WhyReboot...) Anyway, I'll consider the feature request.
In my experience, there's no need for an external utility to tell me that there are too many apps running - I just hit ctrl-shift-esc to bring up the task manager, look at the process list (configured to show the VM size and other memory items - see attached screen snapshot). Then, from that view, you can terminate apps that are taking up too much memory.
WhyReboot?
This is another subject that I've written about - the sheer arrogance of software providers adding junk to your startup lists and taskbar tray thus bringing even the most powerful machines to a crawl. I've written a simple command line utility (XP or Windows 2003 server only at present) that scans the system tray and tells you what's running there, and the name/location of the .exe file behind it.
WhyReboot?
More later...
springro:
Good idea, I've rearranged my to show the VM also.
My only concern is that I read something that indicated that watching the VM wasn't a good way to judge because this maintained the maximum size that has occurred. I might be mistaken, and it was actually referring to the PF usage on the performance tab, not the individual items.
The thing that gets me about watching the Virtual memory is that I've got 2Gb of ram, and even when things start to slow down it's showing more than 512MB used by the system cache. This says to me that either Windows is being a little odd about cache vs programs in memory, or VM isn't the key issue.
How does the "Paged Pool" and Virtual Memory amount compare? Should I be more concerned about something else, see table.
Mem Usage+VM size Paged PoolApplication70MB950MB Dopus275MB154MBFirefox
Which one is of more concern?
Is there something else to watch for in the system that can be indicative of an issue?
I suppose I was interested in something that warns, unlike this Why Reboot that is targeted to be used as a check when you're interested.
Maybe Process Tamer would be a better application to try to get this type of service from.
Regarding sys tray / startup I've been very happy with Startup Control Panel. http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
It checks to see if you want to allow programs to insert themselves anywhere in the multitude of startup methods. Also, it allows you to turn items off without deleting them. This is handy if you do want to start them occasionally, or might want to in the future. It seems like disabling instead of deleting also tends to make most programs believe the startup program is still there and doesn't try to install it again because you killed it last time.
Whoops, the stopping of new programs being loaded to the start routine is handled by a different program by the same author: http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml, but the total file size between them is 100k.
Happy Holidays.
Rob
Arizona Hot:
I have always wanted to know exactly what Windows Update needed to change.
Thank you for relieving that craving.
MilesAhead:
Looks like a handy utility. I use WinPatrol which notifies me if an installer is sticking something in an autostart location and asks me to OK it. If it's RunOnce then usually I'll let it reboot as it's likely finishing off the install. But if it sticks something in the Run key then it likely just wants to stick an agent in the tray or some other nuisance stuff.
Not sure if WinPatrol monitors as many locations.
MilesAhead:
Does anyone know of an alternative to WhyReboot? I checked AlternativeTo already. It seems it hasn't been updated since 2006. That would make it Vista and 7 8 10 unaware.
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