With this version, the feature set is now fixed for the v.1.0.0 release. I’ll just be making bug fixes, minor tweaks, and updating the manual for the first non-beta release.
What’s new:
Added Programs menu to the main window. Moved “Start Programs” from the File menu to the Programs menu, and renamed it “Begin Startup Sequence”.
Added two types of menu options to the Programs menu - the first type is group commands that affect all programs, and a second type which only affect the program that’s currently selected in the program list of the Status page.
Added pop up menu when you right click the mouse on a program on the Status page. The popup menu contains the program specific options also found in the Programs menu.
Added dynamic Program Statistics window. One of the items displayed is the peak PageFile usage. This value is useful in determining a reasonable value for the Memory Leak Protection’s Max Memory setting. After your program has run for awhile (24 hours for example), you can see what the peak memory usage was during that time.
Made some changes to program minimizing and closing.
Fixed bug where programs that were closed because the port they depend upon went down did not always restart when the port came back.
I believe I have an issue. I have VVP, Weatherlink, VPLive, WD, GRLevel3 on Startwatch. When WD opens up through Startwatch the Davis Vp Extraction box does not close. But when I open WD without Startwatch it works just fine. I have duplicated it three times.
Do you have StartWatch configured to minimize WD? If so, turn off that that option and see if that fixes it. If not, email me a copy of your startwatch.ini file.
It’s designed that way, but I’m going to change the design.
The Windows command StartWatch uses to start a program includes a parameter that lets StartWatch say what initial windows state it wants the program to use (such as minimized). However, many programs ignore this or override it with their own idea of what the window state should be after they start. So, to try and force those programs to really be minimized, I added code to StartWatch to additionally send a message to the program’s main window after the program has started. The problem with this is that some programs can have a long initialization process, and that minimize message may end up getting sent to a temporary window that is put up during initialization. This can result in the program getting in an odd window state. I’m going to remove this extra attempt at minimizing programs. I will only use the minimize feature Windows provides in its command to run a program.
Regardless of what StartWatch does for its minimize program option, if the program has its own feature for minimizing after starting, then that is what should be used. The program itself knows best how and when to minimize itself after it starts. And if you do use the program’s own minimize at start option, then you should not also use the minimize feature in StartWatch for that program.
Just trying this out today, I like what I see so far.
Are there any special settings I need to enable with ZoneAlarm Security Suite for this program? So the ‘vsmon.exe’ of ZASS doesn’t start growing? :?
Hi Steve, A great programme, just what I needed and it has proved its worth already after a couple of Wx prog hangs.
I have been running with 4 progs listed (Virt VP, WL, WD, and VWS). However, when I Add a 5th prog via the “Options/Programs and the Enable All” feature, the added programme does not appear in the separate Status panel. If I then close StartWatch (with the progs still running), Startwatch closes and comes up with a memory leakage warning. Restarting of Startwatch is OK and the 5th added programme appears on the Status Panel as expected. Am I adding the 5th prog incorrectly. :?
I don’t use ZoneAlarm, although I used to quite a while ago, so I’m not real familiar with it anymore. StartWatch doesn’t accept network connections from the outside, so no ports need to be opened to get to StartWatch. StartWatch does have a feature for monitoring ports on the local or remote computers. If you use that feature, you would need to have ZoneAlarm approve StartWatch for accessing the network through the ZoneAlarm firewall. You may need to give me a brief on what you mean by “vsmon.exe of ZASS doesn’t start growing” means if the above doesn’t answer your question.
Steve
I haven’t heard any reports about a bug when adding a 5th item, so I’ll need to look into this to see if it’s a bug or a misconfiguration. Email me your StartWatch.ini file from the StartWatch folder on your computer, and I may be able to tell from that what happened. In the meantime, I’ll try and duplicate it here. I doubt it’s your fault. It’s either a bug or a design flaw in the user interface (i.e. non-intuitive).
It “should” work in Vista (famous last words!). I haven’t tried it out yet though. I’ll be setting up a Vista box pretty soon so I can test StartWatch, VPLive and VirtualVP on that platform. Only then could I give you a definitive answer.
The problem you referred to may be the issue I posted about where products that run GUI programs as services (like FireDaemon) may not let you see the program’s windows when run on Vista. Since StartWatch doesn’t run programs as services, that would not be an issue.
Steve, I’m sorry but I’ve already changed the original startwatch config file during my “work around”, whilst re-installing another prog. However, now that I’m working with just 3 progs on the StartWatch Status panel and going through the same sequence to add a 4th prog I’ve run into the same prob with the status panel not updating automatically after adding and enabling all. The only way I can get the status panel to show the added 4th programme is to close StartWatch and re-start StartWatch. Fortunately there has not been a mem leak popup going from 3 to 4 progs. Maybe this is a “intuitative failure” on my part.
Steve, I’m back to the same problem now that I’ve added a fifth prog to the Startwatch list. On closing StartWatch I get an unexpected memory leak problem. This occurred this am because I had to go through a windows XP update and do a full restart anyway! The full warning is as follows:
An unexpected memory leak has occurred. The unexpected small block leaks are:
1 - 12 bytes: Unknown x 1
13 - 20 bytes: EOutOfResources x 1, TList x 2, String x 2
21 - 28 bytes: String x 4
37 - 44 bytes: TStartManager x 1, String x 1
45 - 52 bytes: String x 4
69 - 76 bytes: Unknown x 1
285 - 300 bytes: TProgMonitor x 5
I will email a copy of my StartWatch.ini file once I have downloaded it from my weather PC.
