Idea for New Toolbox Tool - Priority Manager

[Acigan]

I was adjusting some priorities and affinities of running tasks in TASKMGR the other day and had an idea for a new ASC Toolbox tool. There are some LENOVO tasks that I like running all the time but they run at NORMAL normally and run at LOW setting just fine. Why Lenovo doesnt set them to run LOW is beyond me since they only run at start up, check their site, then sleep and wakeup every so often. I set them to LOW so they dont effect real tasks used all the time. If Im not busy on the box, they wake even at LOW and then do their thing. Updating lenovo software isnt that high on things to manage anyway since that company writes very stable applications and rarely pump out updates. So their apps are mostly idle and when active, ping a site and go back to sleep.

 

Its these types of apps that got me thinking of a new concept for an ASC toolbox tool.

 

An Affinity and Priority Manager.

 

Click the new toolbox app icon and a window opens showing different frames of drag and drop panels. one for Affinity (n-number of cores) and one for Priorities (n-number of valid settings).

Even a 2 TAB window would work where tab one is Priorities and tab two is Affinities.

One set of frames would manage CPU Priorities (known values) and the other set manages the CPU Affinities, (also known values and varies by CPUs but fetchable)

Once the app is running it is basically a configuration manager app.

 

To configure the tool one simply drags and drops a shortcut object of the task to manage into one of the panel frames.

When ASC loads at startup, the new tool is called from the ASCservices function every so often (a sweep thru the running tasks setting) to then adjust the running tasks based on the panels and frames.

The shortcut objects are only the pointers to the task names. The different panels determine what to adjust.

 

For example, If as an Admin, I know that some tasks run just fine at LOW Priority even though the task defaults to NORMAL, I could drag and drop its shortcut into the PRIORITIES. LOW panel and the new tool would then automatically move that job down at some point without performing a manual adjustment in TASKMGR. Thereafter, the job would always run at LOW priority even between reboots since ASC is performing the function under the covers when it loads up. There are other ways to manage these functions but none have a clean crisp drag n drop interface that a layperson would understand easily. TaskMgr performs the function, but manually and with context menu popups. It doenst use an icon interface or even a a set once and forget interface. Its manual and only active until next reboot.

 

The same could also be done with the AFFINITY settings based on the number of cores in the box that ASC is running on.

Drag a tasks shortcut into the panel labeled CORE-3 and ASC adjusts that task to only run in the forth core of a quad cpu (cores are base zero guys, thats not a typeo).

 

If i want a task to always run in core 2 at BELOW NORMAL priority .... drag the shortcut first to the core-2 panel and drop it and another shortcut to the BELOW NORMAL panel and drop it. Thereafter ASC would adjust to LOW and set affinity to core-2. If I want to run at HIGH and in cores 2 and 3, dragdrop to HIGH panel and shortcuts to core-2 and core-3 panels. Now the cpu knows to always run that job at HIGH and only in those two cores of the multi core processors. The task application loads and runs based on it installed settings and nothing effects it. It would be ASC coming in after the task is up and running that then sees the management config shortcuts in the settings and changes the affinity/priority after the fact.

 

Absence of any short cuts in the config panels means no overrides to priority and affinities so shipping setting of the tool would be empty and normal PC functions would be processed as NORMAL and system manages cores (usually any affinity available) just as the boxes do now.

 

To revert from an ASC overridden setting back to normal, one simply would right click the shortcut in the config panels and delete it.

 

Using a shortcut also means the apps icon could be fetched and displayed in the panels since the bulk of shortcuts use the ones in the apps or DLL files to begin with. I thought about this also and in the corse of the logic to create the config record, an actual shortcut could be created on the fly from the app, settings fetched from the shortcut, settings written to config, then the shortcut removed. Say from \TEMP or a work space elsewhere.

 

Ive never been a huge fan of BROWSE button and scrolling folders to locate a file. And since INSTALLs create shortcuts either on the desktop or in START BUTTON, one could just drag and drop that copy of the existing shortcut the app already uses, to then populate the proposed toolbox functions settings panels.

 

As with any tool such as this, Admin authority would be necessary and knowledge of the effects understood. Misuse could lag a machine (LOWs used and response now poor) or overtax and heat up a core (an Affinity overused and other cores idle). But to an Admin or Super User that needs these types of functions for performance reasons it could save a ton of management time when there are numerous tasks running and some need adjusting in order to work side by side with some other application not know about when either of them was initially designed or purchased, and concurrent execution causes some form of conflict in the cores or in priorities.

 

A similar function is already being done in the ASC STARTUP Manager and the TURBO, where an installed application is started by the system and then ASC comes along and ends the service (TURBO) or disables the Registry entry from executing (RUN settings in the registry), So the foundations are there for the most part to have ASC manage the system level functions just as ending tasks, so why not expand on that and have ASC also be able to manage running tasks with the Priority and Affinity attributes?

 

From a design standpoint, the toolbox is two applications the interactive config interface and the background app to fetch config and execute upon it. That task just needs ADMIN authority to modify the runtime priority and affinities. After they change, the OS deals with everything else. So basically the proposed tool would just be GUI interface and simple settings modifier.

 

Any thoughts or comments? Its a general idea for a new tool and we could work out all the designs here in discussion prior to commitment.

 

 

[Cicely]

Hi Acigan,

 

It takes me some time to understand your suggestion :oops:

 

Thank you very much for always bring new and creative idea to us. I have forwarded your suggestion to our product team for consideration and will contact you if they have any thoughts or comments on this new tool.

 

Cheers.

[Acigan]

I didn't start a timer for a reply, Cicely. *grins*

 

I tried to address most of what I could upfront.

There are other ways to go about designing such a new tool, but I think a drag n drop approach would be the best method for the User Interface.

Maybe not for the development undertaking, but in the end, its the ease of use for the Users that matter, not ease of design/coding on the Developers.

 

Let me know what the thoughts are of your Team after digesting it all and contemplating on it.

Or point them to this Thread so I can get it straight from them.

 

 

[Cicely]

Hi Acigan,

 

Our Process Manager tool has a feature to set process priority. Please see the attached image. Maybe we will enhance the feature in this tool. But our product team still needs some time to research and evaluate the feature after the final release of ASC 10. Then they will have time to do that. Hope it will be complimented soon.

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't start a timer for a reply, Cicely. *grins*

 

I tried to address most of what I could upfront.

There are other ways to go about designing such a new tool, but I think a drag n drop approach would be the best method for the User Interface.

Maybe not for the development undertaking, but in the end, its the ease of use for the Users that matter, not ease of design/coding on the Developers.

 

Let me know what the thoughts are of your Team after digesting it all and contemplating on it.

Or point them to this Thread so I can get it straight from them.