Process Lasso 10.2 – Core Work

Process Lasso v10.2 improves ProBalance, refactors foreground boosting, adds an Internet Explorer restriction feature, supports Windows 11, and more. Let’s take a tour of a few of the changes…

Session Agent Deployed Always

In version 10.0, we changed the default Governor (the component of Process Lasso that enforces rules) deployment type to a system service. We call this Governor-as-a-Service, or GaaS. This change was enabled by a tiny new session agent process, bitsumsessionagent.exe. We previously only installed the session agent for GaaS deployments, but now we always install it. This simplifies the code and improves handling of multiple simultaneous sessions when the Governor is deployed as a normal process (GaaP) instead of service.

Foreground Boosting

Foreground boosting dynamically increases the priority class of the process whose window is in the foreground. It is generally NOT recommended. ProBalance works in the opposite direction, lowering the priority of problematic background processes. That is because Windows already does some foreground boosting and additional boosts are usually not effective, and may cause issues with some applications. That said, we at Bitsum endeavor to let users run processes their way, so we made sure this feature works to its fullest.

ProBalance Improvements

With the default setting of ‘Ignore children of the foreground process’, processes under active restraint whose parent moves into foreground will now be immediately unrestrained. Previously, this exclusion was enforced only during the initial decision to act on a process, and so a process under restraint whose parent then went to the foreground would have to wait for a natural end to the ProBalance operation a few seconds later. Finally, a distinct log entry type was added for when a ProBalance event ends due to a change in the foreground process.

Internet Explorer Restriction

Some users needed the ability to prohibit Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe) unless certain other processes were also running. This is useful when legacy applications depend on Internet Explorer. This feature can be found under ‘Options / Control / More’.

Windows 11 Support

Proper detection and handling of the latest Windows 11 pre-release was added. Of course, Windows 11 development is on-going, so we continue to monitor and adapt Process Lasso as necessary.

Process Lasso v10.2.0.40 Changelog – Aug 1 2021

• Improvement to ProBalance
• Refactored Foreground Boosting
• Add Internet Explorer Restriction feature
• Deploy Bitsum Session Agent for GaaP installs too
• Windows 11 support
• Other fixes and enhancements

(37) Core: Fix an issue with Instance Balancer 'childof:' rules with no space before process name match
(35) Insights: Improvements with greater than normal system text size or scaling
(31) GUI: Change real-time priority warning message and behavior
(31) CPUEaterDemo: Rename CPU consumer in SFX (live EXE) to testlasso.exe instead of bg.tst
(31) Core: Minor code improvements
(29) GUI: Add 'Exclude from Foreground Boost' process context menu item under More
(29) GUI: Remove superfluous cancel button from 'foreground boosting not recommended' warning messagebox
(25) GUI: Internal adjustment to cancel/close behavior of generic list dialog
(25) GUI: Cosmetic to generic list dialog (foreground boost exclusions, Group Extender, SmartTrim exclusions ...)
(23) GUI: Add Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe) restriction feature under 'Options / Control'
(23) GUI: Add foreground boost exclusions list dialog
(19) CPUEaterDemo: Launch CPU consumer as an orphaned background process, given default foreground exclusion setting. This makes the demo more user friendly and more accurately simulates a real-world background CPU consuming process.
(19) CPUEaterDemo: Add explanatory text regarding treatment of foreground processes
(19) CPUEaterDemo: Cosmetic work
(19) GUI: Allow previously enabled foreground boosting to be disabled in Free versions past trial
(17) GUI: Add 'Boost to High Priority' (instead of Above Normal) foreground boost option
(15) Install: Always deploy bitsumsessionagent, including with GaaP
(13) GUI: Language updates
(11) Core: Refactor foreground priority class boosting to work with GaaS and multiple simultaneous sessions
(11) Core: Add foreground boost option to exclude non-normal priority classes
(11) Core: Remove foreground thread boosting
(11) GUI: Refactor foreground boosting submenu, adding new options
(11) GUI: Minor menu adjustments to 'Options / CPU'
(9) Core: Migrate to GetTickCount64 in ProBalance timing
(9) Core: Add distinct log entry when ProBalance ends due to entry into foreground
(9) Core.ProBalance: When 'ignore children of foreground process' enabled, end restraint if parent enters foreground
(9) Core.ProBalance: If non-normal priority classes are not excluded, ensure that idle priority classes are not raised to below normal
(9) GUI: Minor cosmetic to ProBalance Options dialog
(7) GUI: Fix config reset by menu not clearing some rule types
(1) Core: Add an experimental feature
(1) GUI: Remove 'Always Allow Dark Mode' menu item
(1) GUI: Support Windows 11 in OS build string

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