Tag Archives: Windows

PAUSE command moral

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Few days ago I created batch file to backup Firebird databases, Subversion repositories and some other data on a new server. During the testing of the script I put PAUSE command at the end, to see the result (or better to say errors). After I was done with polishing it up I created record in Task Scheduler and started test run. Everything finished in a couple of minutes nicely. I left it there, expecting it to do the backup during the night, as scheduled.

Next day I checked the result and the task failed with 0x8004131F aka SCHED_E_ALREADY_RUNNING. I checked CPU and disk utilization and it was clear the backup is not running. Kind of confused I ran backup manually and waited another day. And guess what, same error. As you probably now see, the problem was the PAUSE command at the end of the script. So the task was actually running, and waiting for the input. Clearly visible in Process Explorer.

I removed it and now everything works fine. Such a stupid mistake caused such a confusion. :)

TabIndex tool in Visual Studio

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I remember from old times that I was using some plug-in into Delphi IDE to set tab order by clicking on components in order you wanted the ordering to be. Today I was reviewing the tab ordering in ID3 renamer as somebody reported in forum it’s wrong. I was scared doing all the work through Properties window in Visual Studio.

But it turned out, that Visual Studio has this tool in the box. You can find the description here. You’ll simply select form, go to View > Tab Order and click on different controls to change the ordering. You see the numbers directly in designer and go through possible options by clicking.

Pretty nice, don’t you think?

Second feelings about the new SSD

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Let’s call it a day. I’m now running my new Intel X25-M SSD for a little bit more than a day, but more importantly one working day. Shortly, I’m pleased.

I don’t know, maybe my expectations yesterday were too high or maybe I wasn’t just observing (or had no time) the useful stuff. And as correctly this morning my friend Petr Kaleta pointed, I’m not only comparing the disk itself, but also the rest of the system (Dell Latitude D620), whether it’s able to keep up with the disk.

Anyway new observation from today is seeking. Simply forgot about it. First you not hear it – no moving heads, no sound. So somewhere in background you feel something is different. And other fact is that the “seeking” is so fast, you’ll waste other time checking email etc. My Opera, right now with 30 tabs, starts with same speed as empty Chromium was doing on old disk. And it’s not only about the start, when you see the application it’s ready to work with. The post-start processes are already done. Same with Outlook. It behaves really instantly when switching folders, searching, checking calendar etc.

Other piece I noticed is working with virtual machines. You know, I run all my development environment in VMs, hence I stress it a lot. The start up is roughly two times faster as I wrote yesterday. The suspend is even faster. But when you suspend one and start another it’s significant. Normally I was waiting a long time, the disk was overloaded. Now, it doesn’t matter. Same speed.

Another chapter is working inside the VM. The applications there are working faster, thanks to the good seeking behavior. The Visual Studio 2010 RC there starts in under 10 seconds (loading solution with one DAL and BL library and one console application). The first compilation is about four times faster, subsequent ones are not such a big improvement as good piece of work is CPU bound. I like this improvement a lot.

The battery life seems to be about 50% better. It depends very on what you’re doing (and in what shape your battery is), and I even don’t remember exactly how quickly was my battery discharging before. So it’s based on my estimate how many tasks I was able to solve before need to recharge. :) Bear with me.

Last stuff I was carefully observing was installation of Opera 10.50, which came out today. After 15-20 seconds the installation was done. The progress bar flew couple times from left to right. I put this down again to great seeking times (the installation pack is around 10MB, no huge data).

The rest of work is more pleasant. It’s not lightning fast (as I expected for the first time – I know it’s not RAM, beat me :) ), but your not waiting for the disk too much. And maybe it’s just me, but I feel more relaxed when the machine waits for me not vice versa. :D

If you have any questions or you want me to test something, let me know, I’ll try my best. Oh, for true geeks, I’m running SSDSA2M160G2GC (model code) or SSDSA2MH160G2XX (product code) Intel X25-M 34nm SATA SSD.

New SSD (Intel X25-M) – first feelings

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It is couple of hours I’m using my new SSD – Intel X25-M. I ordered it to improve and speedup by working environment.

I’ll start with the migration steps I performed. My initial idea was to use “Complete PC Backup and Restore” function that’s available in Windows 7 (since Windows Vista, I think). As the hardware, except the disk, will be the same it should work smoothly. Research on some blogs and also some friends confirmed this idea (especially Michal Altair Valášek). You create a backup, swap disks, boot from DVD and start restore. Simple and also nice, that such a tool is available directly in Windows.

That was the original idea, and I did the backup just in case and also another two (you know, it’s my data). But my disk came with something called Apricorn Notebook Hard Drive Upgrade Kit. Basically it’s a USB bay for disks and bootable (not only) CD with some rebranded version of Acronis True Image (as I’ve found in some discussions). This tool, among other, can do the disk-to-disk copy. After the first boot and doing nothing just looking what it can do I decided to use it. If you’re asking why, it’s probably because it looked as simpler and more straightforward way. After some time the operation was done.

After boot the system found the drive, installed drives and asked me for reboot. Nothing bad (so far) happened.

Now about the performance. I state beforehand, that I’m using the drive only a while and I don’t have any numbers and I’m going to do any tests.

The first think that literally made me confused was the noise. Well the lack of any noise. Really, the drive is completely silent. And for a guy used to hear the disks from various notebooks, computers with and without cases, NASes for many years it’s really weird. I was so confused I don’t hear the heads seeking a turned off the stereo and looked for some problem. :) On the other hand it’s nice to have completely silent notebook (except times the fan is on).

The boot of Windows 7 was little faster, but nothing killing speed. Same after logging in. When you start application you can definitely feel it’s faster, especially application doing a lot of I/O, like Opera, Outlook or VMWare Workstation when starting VM. Roughly two times faster. But to be honest it’s not a high order of magnitude I was expecting (maybe I expected it to be close to RAM).

Anyway it’s just couple of hours. I’m pleased with the result so far. The drive is completely silent. It’s perceivable faster. And the battery life should be better too. I’ll give it hard times later while doing real work and report back.

Switching from one CPU to more CPUs on XP

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As I recently switched from Virtual PC to VMWare Workstation I wanted to upgrade my VMs to be able to use all cores I have and I granted. Machines I’m using most are Windows XPs and Windows 7. As the Windows 7 migration failed and I’m still about to install fresh W7 RTM, the challenge was XP.

Couple of hints I found on internet and as replies to my question in mailing list but nothing was working or it was screwing the system. But then I found a great document, with the manual, forced, way of switching. Although the document recommends doing the surgery in safe mode, I did it in live system (vivat snapshots) once, with just raw copy (+overwrite) and it worked. 

copy C:WindowsServicePackFilesi386halmacpi.dll C:Windowssystem32HAL.DLL
copy C:WindowsServicePackFilesi386ntkrnlmp.exe C:Windowssystem32ntoskrnl.exe
copy C:WindowsServicePackFilesi386ntkrpamp.exe C:Windowssystem32ntkrnlpa.exe

Anyway, on real important system I would recommend safe mode too. After reboot the system detected new hardware, installed it and after another reboot I was ready to make the cores screaming.

Moving tray icons in Windows 7

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Today I found interesting thing. Tray icons in Windows 7 keep their position and you can reorder them in a way you want. What a great idea.

Because I like all tray icons to be visible, I can now place the most used closer to language bar and the other (in my case the informative) to the corner. Now as all my favorite apps have fixed place on taskbar (like it too) I can enjoy the same comfort with tray icons.