Bitsum is proud to announce Version 6 of Process Lasso. We have been working on it for some time! This version has updated *everything*. From the guts, the watchdog rules, per-core metrics on the graph, and more. It is a major upgrade that lays the framework for much more to come.
Your settings should be safe and migrate mostly in-tact. However, if you want to be double-sure, do an export of the INI file backing them via the File / Export configuration menu item, in case you need to go back. Also validate your settings after the update.
Auto updates to v6 from v5 ARE supported, but NOT recommended.
WARNING: You may lose your Process Lasso NO SLEEP Process Rules. This can cause your PC to do things that it has been waiting for Idle to do, e.g. scheduled disk defrags or updates. You will need to re-apply these settings. Other settings should all persist fine. The reason is because these processes are now subdivided into two types - prevent the whole PC from sleeping OR prevent only the display(s) from sleeping.
On to the new stuff ...
Version 5 | Version 6 | Screenshot From v6 |
On Usernames User contexts in which processes run vary greatly, and are not by any means limited to the list of usernames you see when you login. In version 5 we simply classified any ‘system’ process as ‘system’, and uses TS/RDS Service to resolve the user’s Session ID to their user name. In other words, real users only. | On Usernames Now resolving user contexts based on the security token associated with the process, we show the exact user - even if they don’t have a session (e.g. specific system user contexts). This also removed the pre-requisite that TS/RDS be enabled. It further allowed for proper user name resolution on some W2K and Windows XP machines |
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On the Graph Version 5’s graph is much the same as version 6, minus a few optimizations. It also doesn’t have the additions which version 6 has. See those additions to the left. | On the Graph The new per-core CPU utilization is a new control authored by Bitsum (us) that allows use to show various per-core metrics. Per-core CPU utilization is just the first. As for optimization, you know us - we never do anything if it isn’t visible. You can also toggle it off at any point (though via the View menu for now). Note that 2K/XP non-English users will not see this at this time. We are working on this! |
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On Ease of Use
| On Ease of Use
Many of the configuration dialogs are now much easier to use, and have tooltips, or have otherwise been improved. The main application menu has also had its configuration dialogs better categorized into specific areas of management. |
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On Updating Versiion 5 introduced the product’s automated updater. It took a little time to mature, and fully matures in version 6. It will soon be deprecated, but version 6 represents its best form. | On Updating Not only has the auto-updater been improved substantially, and support been added to force its own update (to prevent any problems like were had once with v5), but we’ve also allowed the user to choose the update check frequency. This has long been desired. |
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On Services: Only supported and displayed services groups | On Services: For any process it is display *or* acting on, Process Lasso now enumerates any services it hosts and handles them accordingly. | See shot A |
On Features:
| On Features: One of many examples is the revamped Process Watchdog dialog. This is where you can create advanced rules to control your system. All without scripting! | See shot B |
On Prevent Sleep | On Prevent Sleep Now you can select if you want to simply prevent the displays from sleeping, or prevent the whole PC from sleeping. |
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On CPU Parking No support. | On CPU Parking This is now an option in ProBalance, to disable it when ProBalance is actively adjusting processes. You can also adjust the CPU Parking behavior in REAL TIME using the ParkControl utility (see Options / Advanced menu). |
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More Precise Targets You could specify process names to control, and include wildcards - but you couldn’t control which users were affected unless you were running in the default state of having a governor instance per user. | More Precise Targets You can now specify the processname AND username (with wildcards on both supported) for many rules. These include Watchdog Rules, Disallowed Processes, etc.. The syntax is: Examples: “process*.exe:*liz” | |
On Stability | On Stability Version 6 includes more unit tests, more operational test, more manual regression testing than any build prior to it. We really ramped up Quality Assurance here at Bitsum. That is not to say it is Perfect, no software is. But you know us, we are all into minor updates ;) Version 6 also adds a series of new safeties that can recover from unusual situations. The fact is that some PC’s have software environments that are very complex, with all sorts of third-party software injecting its hooks into all other processes. | |
On Logging Version 5 did a fine job with logging. | On Logging | |
On Benchmarking Version 5 had the CPU Eater. | On Benchmarking Version 6 has the new ThreadRacer to go along with CPU Eater. It is a great CPU benchmarking tool for multicore processors. | |
On So Much More … | It is near impossible to list the number of changes the way they deserve to be listed - or even give proper credit to internal changes. |
