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IDEA small script to set a timer to startup jkdefrag.exe when computer idle for

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MilesAhead:
how long it has been since a human* has interacted with the pc,
-app103 (August 26, 2009, 03:33 AM)
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Ok I wanted to make sure.  So far the only small utility I've seen that does disk access monitoring is a little Tray App that simulates the LED for HD access(called HardDriveIndicator.)  I don't remember if I ever saw the source or just read the info while looking on the MS site but it uses some performance profile calls(WMI I think) to get the disk activity over the last 2 minutes or something.  But I think those defraggers that run in background either do that or hook right into the disk driver code somehow.  For non device driver probably all you can do is the WMI stuff.

Unless you can measure the disk access there's no way to be sure your scheduled task won't kick off right in the middle of a DVD burn or a defrag by another defragger the user started manually(like if they forgot the scheduled task was there or are not the user who put it there and just decided to defrag.)

app103:
Unless you can measure the disk access there's no way to be sure your scheduled task won't kick off right in the middle of a DVD burn or a defrag by another defragger the user started manually(like if they forgot the scheduled task was there or are not the user who put it there and just decided to defrag.)
-MilesAhead (August 26, 2009, 12:24 PM)
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That's why IdleStart has an option on the tray menu to disable it without closing it. If I were burning something or defragging manually, I'd disable it till it was finished and then turn it back on.

MilesAhead:
...
That's why IdleStart has an option on the tray menu to disable it without closing it. If I were burning something or defragging manually, I'd disable it till it was finished and then turn it back on.
-app103 (August 26, 2009, 04:10 PM)
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That's interesting.  If I could suggest one feature, maybe a time of day span window when the task can fire?  Like, be able to set it to only fire on idle if between 2 AM and 4 AM type of thing?

I just noticed too looking at the latest version of Auslogics Defrag under the schedule options it gives options for a combined CPU/Disk idle percentage.  How it's calculated I don't know but I didn't notice the "disk" part before.  Guess I'll have to try it out of curiosity.

edit: in case anyone is curious, I set up Auslogics defrag to automatic.  It gives ranges from 10 to 30 minutes idle time and I used the default 20% CPU/disk idle setting.  My disk was recently defragged so I didn't notice that much disk activity but the tray icon twirled around for a few minutes.  Looks like it's good enough that my secondary machine might be defragged automatically.  I haven't tested what you have to do to pause the defrag though.  So far it seems like a plausible alternative.

app103:

That's interesting.  If I could suggest one feature, maybe a time of day span window when the task can fire?  Like, be able to set it to only fire on idle if between 2 AM and 4 AM type of thing?
-MilesAhead (August 26, 2009, 05:08 PM)
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I think this application is best kept as-is, in order not to frustrate myself or others.

IdleStart is very simply designed. It doesn't store any settings to the registry or to any type of config file. Everything is passed as a command line parameter. This way, one single copy of IdleStart can be used simultaneously for multiple applications with different parameters for each one.

If I save the times to run to the registry or a config file, it would either lose the ability for multiple instances to run with different configurations, or become a complicated mess requiring me to code the whole thing over from scratch and plan it much differently.

And I think adding more command line parameters might make it more confusing for users to use, with more potential for it not to do what they expected, no matter how good my instructions are.

MilesAhead:
I was meaning to ask if you had IdleStart configured so that multiple instances could run but I got distracted when I noticed the Auslogics scheduling thing.  :Thmbsup:

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