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A new problem that has actually got me a little panicky...

M

mathewsdw

May
855
0
First off, let me say that this is not purely a Take Command/TCC problem, but it is a problem that is also showing up in Take Command/TCC, and it is, for me, a very serious problem. What problem? Simple. As I have indicated multiple times in the past, I am significantly visually impaired, and I am absolutely dependent on the Windows "screen magnify" application (in the "Accessories/Ease of Access" start-menu folder if you've never seen/heard of it before). Unfortunately (and quite stupidly, in my opinion), said program "bogs down" when the system gets busy and the "update" speed gets so slow as to make the program essentially useless, so I use a program ("PV", from the website of System Internals which is now a part of Microsoft) to "up" its priority in a very small batch file after starting it. The problem is that "PV" is no longer finding it, so it is therefore no longer "upping" its priority, and the Take Command/TCC command "Echo %@PID[Magnify.exe]" isn't finding it either (it echoes the value of 0). (There is a shot of the Take Command/TCC window in the attached .zip file.) This is despite the fact that the program is running (I am using it right now) and the fact that it shows up in the Task Manager (The Task Manager window is also in the attached .zip file). So, in the last desperate failed attempt to "fix" the problem, I copied the program from the Windows\System32 directory to another directory (on another drive even, no hard link here) and renamed the program to "MyEssentialProgramToUseThisComputer.exe" and am now running that. Well %@PID still returns 0 for that program name, PV still doesn't find it, and this is not really very surprising because while it still does show up in the Task Manager, it still shows up under the name "Magnify.exe" (and %@PID and PV still don't find it under that name, either!). (As a small note, the Task Manager window in the attached .zip file is the result after the Magnify application had been copied to another directory and renamed. And I must say, I am completely bamboozled by the fact that the "Task Manager" name is not the executable's file name!!!!) At any rate, at this point any help and/or suggestions would sure be appreciated because this is not a joke and it is not funny, I am absolutely dependent on this computer and the internet (yet another of the multiple disabilities that I have is that I can not write and therefore can not "write a check" or mail a check, I pay all of my bills on the internet and do not even own a checkbook!).

Also, about Task Manager: I can, of course, right-click on Magnify.exe and select "Set Priority/Above Normal". However, that does not work because I get a message box: "Unable to Change Priority: The operation could not be completed. Access is denied". What is somewhat more strange about this is that I am logged on as the "original user account" on this machine, which means that I have at least some "Administrative" privileges.

However, I will say at this point that I found out how to (quite a long time ago) and "resurrected" the true Administrator account on this machine (that account is "disabled" by default on Windows 7), and I don't have this problem there; but I really don't want to use that account on a day-to-day basis. The bottom line is that I absolutely can't "up" the priority of Magnify.exe on this machine unless I use the true Administrator account, which I would really (for a fairly large number of reasons) rather not do.
 

Attachments

This smacks of an admin privileges issue. What happens if you run the PV program elevated (assuming that you are running it from TCC, just prefix the program name with start /elevated. If from Windows Explorer right click and select 'Run as administrator')??

If you just issue

Code: 
start /elevated

from a TCC prompt then that will start an elevated TCC window. @PID should then find any program running in the system regardless of which user it is running as, so your echo should work too.

It might also be worth noting that TCC has a built-in PRIORITY command that will enable you to tweak program priorities (and that PV no longer seems to be a part of the SysInternals suite).
 
Steve Pitts said:
This smacks of an admin privileges issue. What happens if you run the PV program elevated (assuming that you are running it from TCC, just prefix the program name with start /elevated. If from Windows Explorer right click and select 'Run as administrator')??

If you just issue

Code: 
start /elevated
from a TCC prompt then that will start an elevated TCC window. @PID should then find any program running in the system regardless of which user it is running as, so your echo should work too.

It might also be worth noting that TCC has a built-in PRIORITY command that will enable you to tweak program priorities (and that PV no longer seems to be a part of the SysInternals suite).
Click to expand...
Steve, these are definitely good suggestions, but it will take me a little time to examine them in detail (I'm kind of slow for a whole host of reasons). Just as a small bit or irony regarding this issue, I submitted this question to the Microsoft "Support" website (the one that charges you $48.00 per question unless you "subscribe" to it) about 3 hours ago, and still, as of this moment, no answer. Finally, I haven't taken the time to look into it in any detail at the moment, but some time ago Microsoft bought the Systems Internals website and programs and hired its personnel, so things like PV may be available directly from the Microsoft website. (Although the "PRIORITY" command seems that it might be a good substitute; I had no idea of its existence until now because I had no need for it until now.)
 
Steve, thank you again for your response. It gave me the information I needed to get the job done. Just as an FYI, the code for DoMagnify.btm file is shown below:
Code: 
@Echo Off
Iff "%1" == "" Then
   Start /Elevated /B /L /PGM D:\DOS\DoMagnify.btm Elevated
   Quit 0
EndIff
Iff %@PID[Magnify.exe] == 0 Then
   C:\Windows\System32\Magnify.exe
   Delay 1
EndIff
Do While %@PID[Magnify.exe] == 0
   Delay 1
EndDo
PRIORITY %@PID[Magnify.exe] ABOVE
Exit 0
Thanks again!!!!
 
Have you look at other thing other than PV. I use Process Lasso by Bitsum Technologies (http://www.bitsum.com/prolasso.php). Process Lasso does load balancing as well as process throttling. You could setup Process Lasso to throttle "Magnify.exe" up whenever it is loaded and allow Process Lasso to load balance everything else.

Craig Gunhouse
 
mathewsdw said:
Thank you for the info and URL. I will look into it...
Click to expand...

If you have any questions about it or need help just ask.

Also, the developer of Process Lasso is a lot like Rex, very much available to the end user of his product.

Craig Gunhouse
 
mathewsdw said:
but some time ago Microsoft bought the Systems Internals website and programs and hired its personnel, so things like PV may be available directly from the Microsoft website
Click to expand...
I have the 'latest and greatest' MS sourced SysInternals Suite on two of my PCs and neither they, nor the older editions I have, include a PV, and I've come to the conclusion that it isn't part of SysInternals at all but instead is a separate tool called Process Viewer for Windows
 
SysInternals Process Explorer has as a right click menu option next to
the running process "Set Priority"
 
cgunhouse said:
PV is probably "alias pv=psexec -high -d"
Craig
Click to expand...
Craig, thank you for your response but you are wrong precisely because I was wrong! I had assumed that PV.exe came from SysInternals (I have had their whole "suite" of programs since, it would appear, some time in late 2006) and I downloaded and installed them yet again yesterday and no, PV.exe is not in there!). So I did a little bit more research into it on the web, and I found out that PV.exe was from a man named Igor Nys and he (at least now) has a Windows GUI version of said program that I have not, as of yet, looked into (although he also still has a command-line version from what I can tell from the GUI search results without looking into it more deeply). (I will download and install these program(s) as soon as I have completed this e-mail.) However, it is not really surprising to me that I was confused by the whole matter: #1. PV.exe is in the same directory where I place all of my command-line programs that are not part of a "suite" (including the C++ programs that I have written myself), and because they are in that directory I can not, of course, tell any longer where they "came from", and the SysInternals suite is the only set of command-line programs that I can think of at the moment that are in their own directory and I don't consider this really important enough to spend any more time doing "research" into it, and #2. The date on the PV executable I have is 10/11/2006 which, given my very real memory issues, is well before anything I would have any hopes of remembering. But, again, I want to thank you and everyone else who has contributed to this thread, your comments have allowed me to solve, what was for me, a very real problem.

- Dan
 
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