Thought

[deathboy]

Why is process priority not fundamental to modern operating systems?

Everyone knows which programs they care more about.

Give us a simple handle to say "this thing first, quickest, best / that thing... feh. later. when it's ready."

Is there something like Process Explorer that will remember the process priority I like for a program?

If you say "buy a mac", I will literally fuck your parents.

I don't even know if OS-X does that, I'm just eager for some MILF action.

Comments

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

Why is process priority not fundamental to modern operating systems?

because they are designed and built entirely by mongs. it's a fact.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Is that like the sort of thing I was ranting about? So pressing a media key brings up my preferred media player instead of sodding WMP?

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

mmmm, don't think so. that's keymapping, non?

I want it so that when I fire up uTorrent, windows knows that uTorrent gets less CPU time than any other normal task.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I thought windows had a processor loading control.

Certainly there's either a toggle or sliding scale which allows you to specify the performance from background tasks. Not idea, but one would expect, the basis for being able to adjust processor useage.

Oh, and OS X does allow you to reduce process priority :)

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

it's easy to do it in XP with or without 3rd party apps, but there isn't something I've found that retains the information from one run to the next.

a shortcut, for instance, does not contain process priority information.

it should. pint of piss that, I feel.

[thecunningbison.livejournal.com]

a shortcut, for instance, does not contain process priority information.

it should. pint of piss that, I feel

And it can, and it does...the secret is to use the Start command - see: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/14500/14500.html

I can't be arsed faffing with process priorities unless it's a necessity (i.e. Opera is suffering an imminent crash, I don't wanna shut it down there and then, survive with it running at 99% cpu load by making it lowest priority...) For that; I always keep a copy of PowerMenu running (by Thong Nyugen ... yes, his name really is Thong.) PowerMenu gives every application an additional set of MUST HAVE commands you can use by right clicking on the relevant running task in the start menu: Priority, Always on Top, Minimize to Tray and Transparency

Other utils I recommend:
ArtTray (http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?8500000036175)
XP Desktop View Changer (http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t40377-0.html) - nt online anymore, I got a backup of it - changes the XP desktop to show small icons/detailed view/etc just like normal xp windows.
AllSnap (http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~iheckman/allsnap/)
Command Prompt Explorer Bar (http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/CommandBar.asp)
Daemon Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/)
LClock (Longhorn Clock) (http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=157465)
Shelltoys XP (http://www.shelltoysxp.com/)
Total Copy (http://www.ranvik.net/totalcopy/)
StickyPad (http://www.greeneclipse.com/stickypad.html)
Rainlendar (http://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php)

[thecunningbison.livejournal.com]

Oh - how could I forget....PowerMenu (http://www.freeware-guide.com/OldGoodFreeware/PowerMenu.html)!

And finally....

[thecunningbison.livejournal.com]

Watch Cat (http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/LFWV/WatchCat.html)...


All these should make Windows much nicer :)

Re: And finally....

[notagod.livejournal.com]

Thanks you for the pointers. :) Always on the lookout for software to make my life easier (and that I don't have to go and write myself).

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it's not entirely keymapping; the media keys control iTunes when it's in the foreground, but even if it's running, playing music, if it's not in the foreground, they start WMP. Eventually. I didn't notice at first because I was trying to skip tracks and WMP takes SO long to respond, I thought they weren't working.

It's certainly an element of keymapping, but I can't find any control that lets me change their behaviour.

[flowerysong.livejournal.com]

Hrm. iTunes is probably doing something naughty with key interception when it's in the foreground, but doesn't have the chance to do so in the background.

[alienfox.livejournal.com]

If you say "buy a mac", I will literally fuck your parents.

Please! My Mum's in an awful mood and I think some Scott throbber would really sort out the mood in this house. xxx

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

dude, call me.



No, seriously, call me! I miss you! :D

[alienfox.livejournal.com]

I will! I don't have your number anymore though, 'cause I lost my phone and had to get it replaced. Obviously you just ignored me when I asked for people's numbers. *tut* ;D

Mail it to meeee for future and possibly present reference. gayofthetriffids@yahoo.co.uk

I see you laughing at my email address. xx

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Um, nice (http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/cmd/cmd.csp?path=n/nice).

You can even re-nice (http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/cmd/cmd.csp?path=r/renice) running processes to a new higher or lower priority part-way through their run.

Available without having to buy anything. If you must insist on paying for, or pirating, your operating system, you can instead do CTRL-ALT-DEL, Task Manager, Processes, right-click a process, Set Priority, which does a half-assed job of doing, for money, what my OS does for free.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

touché.

I meant for 'doze.

I understand how it classes as a "move to *nix" argument, I just don't see why XP hasn't managed to do this, because it's not an *entirely* arse OS.

ho hum. I suffer because I suck the MSwang.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Whilst I enjoy a bit of MS-baiting as much as the next beardie-weirdie, the fact is that Windows NT (upon which 2000 and XP was based) was written from the ground-up to incorporate process priorities, and they do work. NT was based on the VMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS) operating system, for which I have a lot of respect, and is still widely used on big-grunt minicomputers in the financial industry today.

Some processor-intensive applications for NT/2K/XP, such as the VirtualDub video encoder, already provide drop-down lists for users to select priority.

DeathBoyOrScottToHisMum's issue is that outside these few key applications, the functionality to manually select process priorities on WinNT/2K/XP is almost entirely hidden from the user, which to be fair for 99.99% of desktop users is probably the right way to do things (otherwise they'll be n00bs and not understand why ramping Internet Explorer up to "highest priority", far from speeding up their downloads, actually just locks up the machine).

On further investigation it seems that the *nix nice command is part of the GNU CoreUtils for Windows (http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/) package, although renice appears to be missing. The manual page for the Windows nice command (http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/nice-invocation.html) states that "niceness is merely advice to the scheduler, which the scheduler is free to ignore" which may be a polite way of saying "this command doesn't actually work", but it would be worth having a try.

[glensc.livejournal.com]

My mother has asked me to tell you to buy a Mac, dad's got the camera batteries charge and I've come up with a punning title "Petit MortGarcon".

Though possibly more helpfully, can't you alter the shortcut which launch the programs to include run prioity levels?

[frostedmessiah.livejournal.com]

I'm of the opinion that any API that gives you the ability to demand process priority is lying.

Kind of like how I never believe that if I ask for a thread to become daemonised on windows, it will actually do as I say.

Fuck it, I wouldn't trust windows to tell me the truth even if I threatened it with pokings from an abnormally heated soldering iron.

For example: Open the regular task manager and ask it to end a program that isn't responding, and marvel in the glory of the fact that windows will completely ignore your request.

Process Explorer is awesome though... If it weren't for that nifty bit of software, I would have never located and redirected/removed all the pieces of software that my employer put on my machine at work to "make sure I was being productive".

Currently, McAfee ePolicy Agent is set to enforce global system policies as dictated by the head of Systems every 525,600 minutes, instead of the usual 10.

YOUR MOVE, CTO!

[aliasrob.livejournal.com]

Open the regular task manager and ask it to end a program that isn't responding, and marvel in the glory of the fact that windows will completely ignore your request.

Usually this is because there's a bunch of sub process that have died or are waiting to exit. End process tree is your friend here.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

IIRC Windows already has a tweak like this built in, you can tell it you want priority to foreground apps or to background services. Don't remember which control panel it's in tho'.

The "real" Unixes (Solaris, AIX, HPUX) handle this a lot more cleverly, I've done a lot of this sort of thing with Solaris 10 managing complex workloads and it's pretty slick once you've scripted it.

[moopet.livejournal.com]

CP->System->Advanced->Performance->Advanced.
That's really a tweak to give more resources to "services" not just background apps. And I've never seen it make a difference one way or another on any machine.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Done iiiiiiiiiiit. not what I was after at all.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I only want the control I have normally, but in a way that's more accessible and remembered.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I would also like some crepes.

If you could deliver both, I would be awesomely grateful.

[excy.livejournal.com]

Priority control - freeware, here:
http://optionalreaction.com/software/PriorityControl_STATIC/

Or the shareware, Prio - Priority Saver:
http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html

Your google search powers are weak young one.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Your google search powers are weak young one.

Thankya for the links, but I would argue that we must have quite different concepts of "fundamental to modern operating systems" ;) x

[excy.livejournal.com]

I would argue that Windows is not a modern operating system.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

Touché, man.

[crm.livejournal.com]

actual proper process prioritisation takes up too much headroom.*
mac is unix and thus has the 'nice' command, but im not sure how to use it right.

buy more ram?


* i red about it in 'the fundimental characteristcis of operating systems' at secondry school as my classmates spat on me. most of them are now dead or in jail and i know about process priorities. yay.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Did yer book say that more RAM gives automatic process prioritisation?

I'd take yer GCSE back, my son!

;)

[crm.livejournal.com]

GCSwha?

more ram = more resources = bigger wang = less need for prioritisation, knob. :P

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

RAM's not my bottleneck, though, I have plenty!

[deerfold.livejournal.com]

We don't need details of what you get up to with sheep, thank you.

Not again, anyway.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

My surname is Lamb.