WhyReboot?

[mouser]

WhyReboot?

This tiny little freeware program is very simple but i find myself using it constantly, whenever some program tells me it wants to reboot to "complete the install".

Can usually give you some good insight into what operations are pending the reboot:
Tiny, simple, risk free; doesn't change anything, just reports on what it finds in the registry settings that are used to perform operations on rebooting.

http://www.exodus-de.../products/WhyReboot/

[Carol Haynes]

Wouldn't a shortcut to:

C:\WINDOWS\NOTEPAD.EXE C:\WINDOWS\wininit.ini

do the job ??

(Sorry noticed it does more than the window shows)

[mouser]

yeah it reports a couple more registry things...

but it brings up a reasonable point - whyreboot? hasn't been updated in over 2 years and it's a very simple program see below!
[i wonder if a good coding snack might not be to implement this and look for any other registry keys or files that might be useful to see.
not sure there is anything to update but could if so it would make a good coding snack.]

[Josh]

Wow, I like this! Cant believe I hadnt run into this before! I just had nero ask me to reboot again after uninstalling (cant get it to work properly, been working with their tech support (which sucks btw) but to no avail). This is a great way to tell why i need to reboot! Thanks!

[zridling]

Man, this is definitely a snack moment. I often use programs without rebooting, but not all work. Altiris SVS (virtualization tool) has a good solution to this when installing/running programs in a virtual layer, too, where you don't have to reboot.

[ExodusDev]

yeah it reports a couple more registry things...

but it brings up a reasonable point - whyreboot? hasn't been updated in over 2 years and it's a very simple program..
i wonder if a good coding snack might not be to implement this and look for any other registry keys or files that might be useful to see.
not sure there is anything to update but could if so it would make a good coding snack.

-mouser (December 03, 2005, 07:34 PM)

As the author of WhyReboot, I wanted to drop in and say "hi", and address this issue.

First, I've just updated WhyReboot - it's now available on my new site, http://exodusdev.com/products/whyreboot (please update your links, and please avoid linking directly to the downloadable file, because the name/location of the file may change as I update versions, etc.)

The recent updates are cosmetic, but I will be looking at improving the program's functionality if it makes sense.

I've done little with WhyReboot because it fulfills its purpose -- to tell you about pending file operations that are scheduled to happen after a reboot.  The methods used by Windows to control pending file operations have not changed as far as I know.  So, no need to update WhyReboot.

It might be possible to expand the scope of WhyReboot, to include other configuration changes that take place after a reboot, but I'm not sure that adds much value.

Anyway, feel free to visit our new site (http://exodusdev.com) and we plan on adding a forum for WhyReboot-related topics and other issues. 

Regards,

Michael Curry
http://exodusdev.com

[mouser]

Michael!

Great to see you stop by - I should have updated this post when I saw that WhyReboot? was being updated recently.

Thanks for a great program, it really is a must have little tool. 

[ExodusDev]

Michael!

Great to see you stop by - I should have updated this post when I saw that WhyReboot? was being updated recently.

Thanks for a great program, it really is a must have little tool. 

-mouser (December 21, 2006, 12:43 AM)

Thanks for the kind words.

I know I've not done anything substantial with WhyReboot for quite some time... its interesting, it was flying 'under the radar' (this site, and about ten others, had linked to it) for a few years, then, all of a sudden in January '06, we got tons of sites linking in - mainly due to digg.com and LifeHacker.com listings, among others.  My old site got hammered for a few days (see attached chart at end of this post, or click here to go to alexa.com.)

In any case, I appreciate your feedback, I take pride in making useful stuff, so it's always nice to know that people find WhyReboot useful.

[KenR]

What a fantastic program!!! Thanks for letting us know about it mouser.

Ken

[springro]

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!"

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?

Sorry, can't be more specific because I don't know the root cause is of this condition.  Just just starts refusing to open, Excel has problems saving, and you get just a "bong" sound when trying to launch some applications.

Am I being silly?

[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!"

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)

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 Pool	Application
70MB	950MB	Dopus
275MB	154MB	Firefox

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.

[MilesAhead]

I found PendMoves on Sysinternals.  CUI but apparently it reads the same registry key.  Last updated 2013

https://technet.micr...ysinternals/bb897556

[Arizona Hot]

Miles: I have it on my Win 7 and it seems to work fine there.

[MilesAhead]

Miles: I have it on my Win 7 and it seems to work fine there.

-Arizona Hot (June 24, 2015, 11:28 AM)

Thanks for the info.  I guess it is one Registry key.  I thought perhaps all that x64 SysWow64 double registry settings stuff might throw it off.  I also found a .vbs script online to do if via wmi.

http://blogs.msdn.co...name-operations.aspx