Author Topic: Process Tamer Update Coming -- Express your feature requests here! (Read 98420 times)

mouser · « **on:** April 11, 2007, 01:42 PM »

The wonderful comments by Gizmo in his latest newsletter about Process Tamer have convinced me that I need to do another update as a thank you, so I thought I'd start a new thread and collect some of the outstanding feature requests and bug reports so i make sure not to miss them.

ps. Welcome to all Gizmo's Tech Support Alert readers!

MKairys · « **Reply #1 on:** April 11, 2007, 04:35 PM »

All right!

1. Option to invoke config GUI from tray icon via left single-click rather than double-click
2. Ability to resize all columns of the Processes tab

Actually that's all I can think of at the moment

Darwin · « **Reply #2 on:** April 11, 2007, 09:54 PM »

I'm kind of stumped by this - Process Tamer sits in my system tray (but hidden unless active courtesy of PS Tray Factory) and I'm only actually aware of it when it moves onto the system tray proper because it's taming something... Small footprint and does what it's advertised to do.

I guess if I had to suggest anything, it would be that the context menu from the icon in the system tray allowed the user to "stop taming process" or something like that. I'll try to think of more suggestions...

Haven't said it in a while so I'll take this opportunity: thanks for donationcoder, mouser. This will sound corny, but words can't really express the gratitude that I feel for what you have created and how proud/grateful I am to be part of it.

justice · « **Reply #3 on:** April 12, 2007, 04:36 AM »

Possible add similar capabilities for memory hogging programs? Sometimes that can bring a system to a halt. Although I don't know what you could do to combat it.

Jakeman · « **Reply #4 on:** April 12, 2007, 05:03 AM »

Hi!
I'm a member of this site as a result of a previous posting by Gizmo in one of his past issues of TechSupportAlert, but until I read the current issue earlier today, I wasn't aware of this software. Finally got around to downloading and installing (and registering) at this late hour, but I got an error message upon launching it for the first time. I captured the screenshot with WinSnap, but I'm not sure if I did what was needed to pass it along to you. So just in case it didn't work, the message read:

"The instruction at '0x7c5ae578' referenced memory at '0x7822e496'. The memory could not be read." Then it said it was terminating the program.

Any idea what the heck this is? The program seems to be active, and I can access it from the system tray icon, but then I get the same message again. Should I uninstall and start over?

Sorry to interject this technical junk here, but wasn't sure where else to do so. Regardless, I wanted to say thanks for the software and I hope a lot of fellow Gizmo supporters find their way to this site...

I'll try to figure out what my problem is, but any insights would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jakeman

MKairys · « **Reply #5 on:** April 12, 2007, 08:03 AM »

I guess if I had to suggest anything, it would be that the context menu from the icon in the system tray allowed the user to "stop taming process" or something like that.
-Darwin (April 11, 2007, 09:54 PM)

Uncheck "Enabled"?

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** April 12, 2007, 08:47 AM »

Jakeman, are you using win9x or winMe? process tamer is only for Win 2K/XP, so that might explain the problem.

Darwin · « **Reply #7 on:** April 12, 2007, 09:50 AM »

I guess if I had to suggest anything, it would be that the context menu from the icon in the system tray allowed the user to "stop taming process" or something like that.
-Darwin (April 11, 2007, 09:54 PM)
Uncheck "Enabled"?
-MKairys (April 12, 2007, 08:03 AM)

I probably didn't explain that very well... most likely because it was half-baked idea anyway

I'll try disabling PT next time and see if that does the trick. This really reflects how well PT already works and how seamless it is. My main complaint has to do with how PS Tray Factory behaves - trying to select PT's tray icon when it appears is like trying to hit a duck in a shooting gallery - often PT is only active for a few seconds. When I try to select it to configure it to ignore whatever process it's busy taming, it will move three or more spaces to the right, stay there briefly and then hide. If I select it within PS Tray Factory to be visible all the time no doubt this wouldn't be a problem. So, er, not a problem with PT at all!

Still, I'd never noticed the "enable" option in the context menu, so thanks!

rjbull · « **Reply #8 on:** April 12, 2007, 10:03 AM »

I'm very new to Process Tamer and I'm using 2.06.01. I think the help file needs minor re-wording where it says disable/enable by double-clicking the tray icon. You can set it that way in Configuration, but I don't think it does that out of the box, and the help file should probably put the default action first.

Does it make any sense to be able to set percentage trigger levels individually?

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #9 on:** April 12, 2007, 11:16 AM »

PT does a great job at a well-targeted problem. It would be hard to improve on it. But since you insist, here are some ideas.

Allow the foreground task more leeway -- if it's something that I'm actually interacting with, then allow it to hit a higher threshold before "punishing" it.
Current Status -- I know there's a log I can consult to see what's happening, but how about a "Current status" to reveal a list of any processes that are currently in the penalty box?
Misbehavior list -- show a simple list of all processes that have been throttled since the last time the list was cleared, and maybe a count of how many times. (this and the previous item would help me locate problems on my system)
Temporarily allow a busy task -- Select a currently-throttled process and allow it to continue freely until the process ends (or PT ends), without creating a permanent rule.

Jakeman · « **Reply #10 on:** April 12, 2007, 12:21 PM »

Jakeman, are you using win9x or winMe? process tamer is only for Win 2K/XP, so that might explain the problem.
-mouser (April 12, 2007, 08:47 AM)

Hi Mouser!

Thanks for the quick response; after I sent my post I realized the omission but wasn't sure of it's importance. I'm running Win 2000 (SP4), but on an older PC (Dell Optiplex G1) with a Pentium II (350 mHz) and 256 MB of RAM. Is this enough for your program?

I had done some "housekeeping" yesterday and got rid of some old files, then I upgraded my browser to Firefox 2.0.0.3 just prior to downloading the Process Tamer software. Could some residual crap on my hard drive (80GB) have interfered with it? When I started the computer today, that same error message appeared after the system came up. Haven't checked into this any further yet, and I'm off to work...

Appreciate it,
Jakeman

Darwin · « **Reply #11 on:** April 12, 2007, 12:41 PM »

PT does a great job at a well-targeted problem. It would be hard to improve on it. But since you insist, here are some ideas.

Allow the foreground task more leeway -- if it's something that I'm actually interacting with, then allow it to hit a higher threshold before "punishing" it.

Current Status -- I know there's a log I can consult to see what's happening, but how about a "Current status" to reveal a list of any processes that are currently in the penalty box?
Misbehavior list -- show a simple list of all processes that have been throttled since the last time the list was cleared, and maybe a count of how many times. (this and the previous item would help me locate problems on my system)
Temporarily allow a busy task -- Select a currently-throttled process and allow it to continue freely until the process ends (or PT ends), without creating a permanent rule.
-CWuestefeld (April 12, 2007, 11:16 AM)

Dang! Now why couldn't I have come up with this list?

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** April 12, 2007, 01:11 PM »

Allow the foreground task more leeway -> not a bad idea (note that current version of PT lets you say to never tame the foreground task, which is a useful option).

Misbehavior list -> yes i thought of this myself and i like it.

Temporarily allow -> that's a good idea.. plus maybe a menu option to put the currently tamed app on ignore list or other choices, so that you dont have to bring up the config dialog for common things.

Darwin · « **Reply #13 on:** April 12, 2007, 01:26 PM »

Temporarily allow -> that's a good idea.. plus maybe a menu option to put the currently tamed app on ignore list or other choices, so that you dont have to bring up the config dialog for common things.
-mouser (April 12, 2007, 01:11 PM)

That's more or less what I was driving at earlier, but failing to put into words

rjbull · « **Reply #14 on:** April 13, 2007, 06:24 AM »

Can Process Tamer be remotely enabled/disabled, i.e., can you put a command in a scheduler to enable or disable it? Then when running 24/7 I can let the remote administrators do what they will when I'm not present, but can automatically reclaim a reasonable degree of control when I am. If you see what I mean...

dandersahn · « **Reply #15 on:** April 13, 2007, 02:54 PM »

I would love to have the ability to set process tamer rules based on the full startup command line, not just the exe (or at least the exe and all flags that follow it). This would allow rules for specific instances of programs (e.g. svchost.exe).

Darwin · « **Reply #16 on:** April 13, 2007, 04:53 PM »

I would love to have the ability to set process tamer rules based on the full startup command line, not just the exe (or at least the exe and all flags that follow it). This would allow rules for specific instances of programs (e.g. svchost.exe).
-dandersahn (April 13, 2007, 02:54 PM)

That's an excellent idea. svchost.exe drives me mental, though since Carol pointed out that downgrading from Microsoft Update to Windows Update will cure many svchost.exe woes, things have improved immeasurablely (sadly my mental health has, for good or bad, been consistent throughout...).

MKairys · « **Reply #17 on:** April 17, 2007, 07:37 AM »

Better use of the tooltip real estate:

No reason to put "Process Tamer" in there, since I know which icon I'm hovering over
When not taming, put top two or three processes and their percentages

shmate · « **Reply #18 on:** April 17, 2007, 06:24 PM »

.

Wonderful news !

Some suggestions:

1] Reminder for this issue: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=7589.0

2] Adjusted priority_range: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=8154.0

3] Separating the time intervals triggers:
One time trigger for entering the lowering phase and another one for exiting. (the same as the
CPU usage triggers)
This will allow quicker entering the taming phase and exiting only after a proper time period.

4] The ability to adjust the triggers per process.
The reason is quite obvious - every process have its one normal CPU usage range.
A too high CPU consumption level for the browser may be a normal level for the media_player.

If the ideas are not clear enough , I would be glad to make additional explanations.

Thanks

hercules550 · « **Reply #19 on:** April 21, 2007, 09:32 PM »

WinXP SP2 - Am currently unable to tame (elevate to high) explorer.exe by rule - is this just me or what?

terribleterryc · « **Reply #20 on:** April 22, 2007, 04:54 PM »

Worked fine on my XP Sp2 with controlling Firefox and opera which I run at same time.
Then I played with it and had to disable it. I do not have lower area of config box with the reset button shown in help?
Copied settings in example(help) and working now. Where is my default settings button?

Cavalcader · « **Reply #21 on:** April 22, 2007, 07:54 PM »

This is one of my favorite background programs! It really does help make Windows more usable.

The ideas I like best out of what people have thought of so far:

Temporarily allow a busy task -- Select a currently-throttled process and allow it to continue freely until the process ends (or PT ends), without creating a permanent rule.
-CWuestefeld (April 12, 2007, 11:16 AM)

2] Adjusted priority_range: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=8154.0
...
4] The ability to adjust the triggers per process.
-shmate (April 17, 2007, 06:24 PM)

A tip of the hat to these three, which I think combine to round out an important overall concept: more fine-grained control over individual processes.

I also like the idea of a list of recently tamed apps and the start/end times for their taming. Besides system diagnostics or troubleshooting benefits, it also helps one affirm that the Tamer settings are working well overall. Maybe the stats could even be exported in a CSV format or something similar for the die-hard number crunchers out there -- heck, you could even do a daily/weekly/etc. graph if you could export the relevant info.

Notice that I'm not asking for a built-in graphing capability, which would be quite the project in itself. Maybe next version.

ERICY · « **Reply #22 on:** May 16, 2007, 06:45 AM »

It could generate the speed of an application under the limitation. If it is going to use more than the limitation, a warning diagram could come out to make sure whether allow the application get higher priority or not.

Grorgy · « **Reply #23 on:** May 16, 2007, 07:34 AM »

Not being a programmer i dont know what these sort of changes would mean to the footprint of process tamer itself, a lean mean taming machine is one i want, i dont want it taming itself lol, i watched it for a little while with the being tamed messages but now ive turned them all off and hidden the icon, and it goes about its task silently, out of sight but whenever i have a situation that used to stop all, i think fondly of the little program with the whip and chair bringing the offenders to heel

Cavalcader · « **Reply #24 on:** May 25, 2007, 09:19 PM »

... I thought I'd start a new thread and collect some of the outstanding feature requests and bug reports so i make sure not to miss them.
-mouser (April 11, 2007, 01:42 PM)

So, what's news? Hadn't heard from you for a couple of months. Do any of the suggestions sound workable