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I'm probably wasting my time re a fairly consistent and significant TCC misbehaviour, but...

May
855
0
At this moment I have three Take Command/TCC instances executing, only one of which is even visible much less usable. How am I defining "visible"? Simple: Alt-Tab showing a caption/title of some kind when that Take Command/TCC instance is highlighted (which is not the case at the present moment), and actually being able to "switch to" that Take Command/TCC instance when I take my my finger off of the "Alt" key, rather than the focus being maintained on the app that had the focus when I hit the Alt-Tab key in the first place. Further, if I minimize all visible open windows/apps the last visible app does not "appear to" minimize (i.e., it remains on the screen) and the cursor turns into an hour-glass that stays on the screen until you Alt-Tab to switch to another, "visible" when not minimized, app. And for the two invisible/completely unresponsive Take Command/TCC instances, one is an elevated TCC simply doing a "Copy G:\ K:\ /S /O" command (where G: and K: are external hard drives), the other a non-elevated TCC session where I simply entered "help" with no parameters. Put simply, this happens often enough for me as to be really irritating, and I am running no instances of programs that I wrote myself at the moment (either .btm files or C++ programs), or to say it another way, every program that is currently executing is either a Take Command/TCC instance or a completely "standard" Microsoft or other vendor's program (specifically at this moment, the Microsoft-supplied standard Windows "Magnifier" app, MS Outlook 2003, 3 Notepad instances, Windows Media Player, and an instance of the MS-supplied "Solitaire" program, which I play with while I am waiting for commands/programs to complete so I am not bored (while I'm not bored playing Solitaire after all these years is a mystery I have no interest in solving ;)).

So there can be no confusion as to what is running/what is not in my system at the present moment:
Code:
AcroRd32          26812  6  13  257  5640    0:00:03.744    16:26:17.975
AcroRd32          27868  6  7  415  43060    0:01:24.880    16:26:17.085
Agent            28888  8  52  273  24544    0:00:01.497    12:17:03.517
armsvc            1624  8  4  63    788    0:00:00.031    39:29:12.500
audiodg            1172  8  8  362  16064    0:00:13.665    39:29:14.479
CAAMSvc            1768  8  9  81  5972    0:00:00.015    39:29:04.092
casc                196  6  24  473  25880    0:00:16.645    39:27:43.782
ccevtmgr          11828  10  27  426  21340    0:00:09.625    26:13:24.877
ccprovep          26808  8  4  57    784    0:00:00.000    14:10:39.702
ccprovsp          2548  8  4  74    960    0:00:00.936    39:27:26.708
ccschedulersvc    1844  8  5  115  1460    0:00:00.374    39:29:03.655
ClassicStartMenu  4048  8  1  78  3320    0:00:00.046    39:27:50.729
conhost            5256  8  2  44  3564    0:00:47.034    39:23:06.082
conhost            5868  8  2  44  3576    0:00:48.001    39:18:02.856
conhost          34656  8  2  37  1844    0:00:02.199    1:52:47.506
csrss              504  13  9  712  1360    0:00:09.094    39:29:32.934
csrss              564  13  11  799  12372    0:14:02.920    39:29:27.334
DownloadManager    4128  8  18  406  28980    0:00:23.602    39:27:16.487
explorer          3388  8  28  764  30572    0:05:36.057    39:28:17.385
firefox            1996  6  32  634 193792    0:12:31.066    39:22:50.905
GoogleCrashHandler  2592  4  3  61    676    0:00:00.062    39:27:31.712
GoogleToolbarNotifier  3696  8  7  238  2760    0:00:01.294    39:27:36.924
Idle                  0  0  1    0      0    8:32:26.112    0:00:00.000
isafe              1824  8  9  156  4936    0:00:40.887    39:29:03.936
jusched            2028  8  1  44    756    0:00:00.015    39:27:39.166
lsass              660  9  7  864  3316    0:00:35.911    39:29:23.590
lsm                668  8  9  178  1560    0:00:01.045    39:29:23.574
Magnify            5400  10  8  135  41164    4:45:53.417    39:15:20.546
McciCMService      2012  8  5  112  1172    0:00:00.062    39:29:02.579
McciServiceHost    100  8  15 4721 100532    0:24:04.506    39:29:02.532
McciTrayApp        4080  8  15  200  4144    0:22:48.347    39:27:49.130
MDM                472  8  5  87  1520    0:00:26.317    39:29:02.454
Name                Pid Pri Thd  Hnd  Priv        CPU Time    Elapsed Time
notepad            8548  6  2  77  1164    0:00:01.435    28:20:35.116
notepad          20860  6  2  76  1168    0:00:02.870    21:12:58.173
notepad          32800  6  2  81  1224    0:00:03.494    1:18:05.653
nSvcAppFlt        1932  8  4  80  1492    0:00:00.046    39:29:02.813
nSvcIp            2440  8  6  121  2520    0:00:00.156    39:28:43.250
nvvsvc              888  8  5  69    720    0:00:00.046    39:29:16.008
nvvsvc            1304  8  5  98  2544    0:00:02.901    39:29:13.902
OUTLOOK            4596  6  26 1198  77732    0:03:50.631    39:10:30.904
plugin-container    984  6  16  221  33760    0:21:38.708    39:22:07.539
plugin-container  27184  6  4  146  8048    0:00:01.310    16:26:21.970
prio_svc            768  8  4  36    456    0:00:00.031    39:29:01.845
PsList            35624  13  1  160  2100    0:00:00.312    0:00:00.298
scrybe            4380  8  10  453  14976    0:00:44.304    39:27:09.059
ScrybeUpdater      1296  8  6  221  3512    0:00:02.106    39:29:01.549
SDWinSec          2504  8  8  137  11452    0:00:02.683    39:28:42.704
SearchIndexer      2776  8  11  979  47992    0:00:42.931    39:27:41.068
services            652  9  6  262  5660    0:00:17.238    39:29:23.746
smss                300  11  2  29    224    0:00:00.218    39:30:24.710
Soft32 Updater    3628  8  11  637  36444    0:00:12.979    39:27:17.329
Solitaire          4648  8  9  230  74568    0:21:37.444    39:26:51.633
SPLUS_UI          3672  6  6  380  18772    0:00:47.627    39:28:13.127
spoolsv            1524  8  15  322  6484    0:00:06.489    39:29:12.825
sqlservr            524  8  31  299  52440    0:14:44.681    39:29:02.360
sqlwriter          1588  8  4  75  1228    0:00:00.078    39:29:01.455
svchost            640  8  21  276  5252    0:00:07.363    39:27:48.776
svchost            824  8  11  397  3292    0:11:34.126    39:29:16.445
svchost            916  8  9  400  4632    0:00:17.409    39:29:15.930
svchost            964  8  19  475  14192    0:00:10.498    39:29:15.774
svchost            1088  8  15  352  53712    0:12:50.332    39:29:14.994
svchost            1116  8  28 1069  28268    0:01:16.331    39:29:14.932
svchost            1232  8  9  267  3716    0:00:17.893    39:29:14.183
svchost            1432  8  14  421  11392    0:00:13.478    39:29:13.252
svchost            1568  8  11  237  5368    0:00:01.388    39:29:12.690
svchost            1984  8  3  46    700    0:00:00.015    39:29:02.641
svchost            4368  6  4  76    904    0:00:00.031    39:23:14.272
SynTPEnh          3236  10  9  202  8052    0:00:50.856    39:27:46.475
SynTPHelper        3780  10  1  17    460    0:00:00.015    39:27:42.167
System                4  8 119 2350    60    0:24:38.296    39:30:24.726
taskeng            6104  8  5  94  1136    0:00:01.232    39:18:14.141
taskeng          33432  8  5  83    984    0:00:00.078    1:52:57.280
taskhost          3284  8  9  287  9560    0:00:04.243    39:28:18.384
tcc                1712  6  6  192  26324    0:30:38.284    39:23:06.142
tcc                5424  6  5  172  24696    0:32:23.444    39:18:02.898
tcc              34244  6  4  138  18504    0:02:38.559    1:52:47.549
tcc              35412  6  2  89  9528    0:00:00.062    0:00:00.364
tcmd                740  13  8  293  31808    0:09:37.983    39:18:13.639
tcmd              3776  13  8  289  29484    0:01:47.531    39:23:14.222
tcmd              31508  13  7  273  28324    0:01:03.617    1:52:56.947
TeaTimer          1052  4  4  143  69924    0:20:56.525    39:27:23.908
UmxEngine          1692  8  39  945 120328    0:48:06.564    39:29:01.377
vds                2860  8  13  150  2140    0:00:00.530    39:28:30.739
winampa            4040  8  1  38    636    0:00:00.062    39:27:51.016
wininit            572  13  3  76    884    0:00:00.218    39:29:26.881
winlogon            608  13  3  100    976    0:00:00.327    39:29:25.384
WINWORD            6048  8  14  648  37012    0:04:44.920    39:13:18.500
wmplayer          8140  8  24  735  38648    0:03:56.091    37:10:58.506
wmpnetwk          5288  8  15  506  11260    0:00:32.089    39:26:19.001
WUDFHost          2960  8  9  248  2060    0:00:00.951    39:28:30.209
I really don't know what everything in the above list is; I just know that it is something that I did not explicitly start. And the above list was generated by using the SysInternals' (now a part of Microsoft) "PsList" command.

And to be even more complete, a complete list of the "services" currently on this machine are included in an attached .zip file (it is too long to put here inline). And I apologize for the horrible formatting of said list, but that's the way the list comes out of "Services.msc" when you "export" it. And I'm not aware of any service in the above list that is not "standard" in some way.

I will also add as an aside, that whenever I put the "List" command at the end of a "pipe" I ultimately have to hit Ctrl-C after hitting the "Esc[ape]" key to terminated it; only mildly annoying but possibly somewhat related to the previous.

And, as always, TCC 13.04.52 Windows 7 (Professional) [Version 6.1.7601].

- Dan
 

Attachments

  • Services.zip
    13.2 KB · Views: 307
Rex, I have (and can have, as far as I can tell) no explanation for this either. I just know that it is (still! The only "cure" is to log off and back on again - and I get "bitched" at for trying to log off while those instances are still running) the case and the only plugin I have loaded is "SafeChars", which I am quite dependent on. (I just opened a brand-new TCC session for verification). - Dan

P. S. If there is any information beyond what I've already given that will help you, please tell me so and I will be glad to provide it. I would guesstimate that this happens to me two to three times a week.

P. P. S. And, is typical, "Exit" commands do not "exit" open TCC sessions (the "exit" command just "hangs"), I have to hit the "close" on the tab to terminate them (even the completely empty and totally unused TCC instances like the one I just opened to get the list of currently-loaded plugins).
 
Dan:
Your system is overloaded! Years back I was I was in a facility where new software I installed was blamed for frequent server stoppages. When an expert was called in, it turned out that the paging tables used by the OS were paged out, and could not be paged back in, due to too many users allowed to access the system. Additional hardware solved the problem (and exonerated my software). The OS? VAX-VMS, one of the most reliable ones of its day. BTW, one of my systems had recently exhibited somewhat similar problems. I went through the BIOS settings, and discovered that a while ago I decided to speed up my system by "overclocking". I turned it off, and now it is again a highly stable system. In particular, the disk drive where the OS is located, and the one with the pagefile, need to have adequate free space. As a rule of thumb any drive with less than 15% free space will act as an anchor...
 
Dan:
Your system is overloaded! Years back I was I was in a facility where new software I installed was blamed for frequent server stoppages. When an expert was called in, it turned out that the paging tables used by the OS were paged out, and could not be paged back in, due to too many users allowed to access the system. Additional hardware solved the problem (and exonerated my software). The OS? VAX-VMS, one of the most reliable ones of its day. BTW, one of my systems had recently exhibited somewhat similar problems. I went through the BIOS settings, and discovered that a while ago I decided to speed up my system by "overclocking". I turned it off, and now it is again a highly stable system. In particular, the disk drive where the OS is located, and the one with the pagefile, need to have adequate free space. As a rule of thumb any drive with less than 15% free space will act as an anchor...
Steve, you were probably at least somewhat correct (and I suspected as much, particularly since the CPU utilization was at 100% virtually 100% of the time), so I spent more than a day "shutting down" everything (particularly "services") that I felt that I didn't need and the system is running much better now than it was and the CPU utilization now probably averages somewhere around 50%. The two largest remaining CPU "hogs" are the Firefox "plugins", which don't seem to be causing a problem, and the native Windows "Magnifier" app (which I have set to "above normal" priority to keep it actually consistently useful) and that is probably the most important piece of software on this machine (even more important than TCC!) because the machine would be basically unusable for me without it. "Memory load" was never an issue since it never really went above approximately 60% for what I assume to be "physical" (as opposed to virtual) memory; and things are running much better on the whole now that I've done that. The only negative consequence is that I did something such that the touch pad on this laptop no longer functions at all (I am now using a USB mouse that I had available on the arm of this easy chair which is kind of a pain in the rear but oh, well) despite the fact that its specific driver is installed and all of the "tools" (don't remember any more what those "tools" specifically are off the top of my head) related to such things indicate that it is "installed and functioning normally". It may be because I shut down a recent "addition" to the touch pad software suite, something called Scrybe which is associated with the touch pad that allows you to do a whole mess of things like closing and minimizing windows and the like by using "gestures" of some kind. Well that was I something I really neither wanted nor needed (I wouldn't remember what all of these "gestures" are supposed to be in the first place because of my bad memory nor am I likely to use them effectively because of my lack of coordination). I have since uninstalled, re-downloaded, and re-installed Scrybe to no net positive effect and, simply put, I've given up on that for now because it's only an annoyance and not really a "problem". I also got rid of a lot of stuff both on my C: and on my D: drives (both at close to 100% utilization; in fact there was a point where my C: drive had less than 16 megabytes(!) of free space) by either moving stuff to my external hard drive(s) or by deleting it entirely. C: is now at 60.9% utilization and and D: is at 85.4%. (By far the biggest "pig" on C:, as it turns out, was a directory named "Windows.old" which is what the install process of some version of Windows 7 renamed the existing Windows directory when I installed it.) I did this by either 7-zipping it up and transferring it to my external drive(s) or by just deleting it entirely.

So on to the main point: The problem I complained about when starting this thread all happened after I had done all of the above.

And Rex, while I really have no expectations here as I indicated at the start of this thread, a solution would be nice.

- Dan

P. S. I am going to say some things explicitly here that are rather personal that I've touched upon in the past in these forums. And this stuff is rather long (almost a novel, I would suppose ;)); I would just suggest that you don't read it if you don't want to and since memory is so cheap (1TB external disk drive for $99.00 including shipping) it won't be costing Rex much of anything. So, one of the major problems I have in my life is that I am essentially a morass of contradictions. I am (or maybe was is a better word) very smart, but with a whole slew of disabilities that negate that to a significant degree. I have been legally blind since the age of 7 (but correctablely - extreme nearsightedness combined with extreme astigmatism - until about a decade ago and there's a story as to exactly why that is the case but I'll "spare" you the details); the word "uncoordinated" doesn't even begin to describe me; my memory has never been "good" (my grades in school were pretty much inversely proportional to how much rote memorization was required. Excellent almost to the point of being awesome (two specific and quite similar and humorous examples - my freshman algebra teacher (a Mr. Summers) brought things in to the class for me to "fool with" (books, puzzles, you get the idea) sitting at the back of the room during class and did not make me do the homework (even though he allotted time during class for students to do the homework and it was graded) because I consistently got very high, and often even perfect scores, on his tests. And the reason for this was simple: for me algebra was like being taught that the "sky was blue", not why the sky was blue (which I fully understand, BTW), but that the sky was blue. And the second case was high school physics (a Mr. Sendarick; I may not have the spelling exactly right but it was 40 years ago) who did exactly the same as Mr. Summers for the same reason(s) as Mr. Summers did other than the fact that he did make me participate in the labs.) However, in classes where rote memorization was a large component of the material I generally did from not that well to absolutely terrible. I was kept after school for probably literally months in 7th grade because the teacher (I no longer remember her name) wouldn't "let me out" until I had learned the capitals of all 50 states which I eventually did but probably forgot within about a week of her letting me "escape". (I know the capitals of exactly three (I think! ;)) states right now: Illinois (where I live), Indiana (where I grew up), and, for some strange reason, New York (and I could be wrong but I'd actually rather not find that out! :))) And the way Geometry was taught in high school (it is my understanding that this was not the case for many if not most high-school Geometry classes) was such that rote memorization of proofs was essentially a requirement. This may be because he wanted said "proofs" "played back" on an almost literally character-by-character basis; it may be because these things were, to me, like proving, again, that "the sky was blue" (I truly have a hard time memorizing how to "prove" the obvious), it could have been some combination of both. At any rate, doing this was beyond my capabilities and I got a "D" in the class (which could have actually been him being somewhat kind to me) which "knocked" me out of the "Mathematics Honors" curriculum. And just as a very good illustration of what I am talking about here, I had one report card in high school (you'll understand why I remember this in just a moment) that had an "A", a "B", a "C", and a "D" in order going down the report card. My parents never gave me much crap about this stuff, I assume it was because my father had had the same issue(s).

And I attended college at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (called "Rose Polytechnic Institute" when I started there), and to quote their website (http://www.rose-hulman.edu/about.aspx) "Top National Rankings: It's true Rose-Hulman has been ranked No. 1 by U.S. News & World Report among institutions whose highest degree in engineering is the master's. With 99% placement, the school is ranked in the Payscale top 10 for starting salaries. Rose-Hulman is recognized with many more national accolades." It was there that I learned just how good I was at computer programming (I was an Electrical Engineering student; and BTW I have a very deep understanding of computers from that education; specifically I "specialized" in digital hardware design), and I actually wrote my in my Junior year the device driver for some graphics terminals (this was 1972 or '73; "graphics terminals" were still a relatively new technology then) that the school had just acquired and I was strongly "encouraged" by one of the faculty, somewhat to the point of affecting my grades, to continue to do this and he almost obsessively "followed" my progress and rather continuously "suggested" requirements along the way which mystified me a bit because I was, after all, just doing this because it was "interesting" and for fun and "challenge" of it. Well I found out rather accidentally after the fact that there was a good reason for this: The school had gotten those terminals for free in "return" for writing the graphics drivers for them; and the drivers that I wrote were, in fact, delivered to the manufacture. And there is yet another humorous irony here: the next year there appeared in the bookstore a small spiral-bound booklet describing how to use the software for the graphics terminals that I had written (I had not written any "formal" documentation) that had on the cover (in a rather large font) the name of the "author" of said booklet whereas my name appeared in about a 12-point font I would guesstimate at the bottom of the inside back cover of said booklet "Software written by Daniel Mathews". I thought then, and still think today, that that was quite funny. (I'm laughing as I type this.)

And a final note on the above that I also find quite humorous: One of my friends told me that I should inform people about my disabilities, particularly my memory, up front because I don't sound like I am as stupid as I really am due to my bad memory, and this person was correct. So far it has worked amazingly well in my dealings with the IRS (being told how to save money - almost $2000.00, in fact) by the IRS man, can you even believe that? And the Illinois Secretary of States employee - smiling at me, making suggestions on how I can minimize the effects of my disabilities and save money, again I would assume you get the idea. And the really funny part is I no longer remember which one of my many friends (this is incredible even to me but true: I have 20 close friends including 13 people I love very much in my life and 7 of whom regularly tell me that they love me. These 7 are all women; I learned the hard way that you don't say that to men in this society; doing so almost destroyed (but did not, thank God) the longest (more than 30 years) and most important relationship in my life. But things are fine now and have been for a number of years; I get the distinct impression that he now both fully understands and fully accepts that I love him and that said love is not sexual in nature. And I also love his wife very much and she loves me and I know this because she tells me so on a regular basis which appears to bug him a bit but he's never complained to me about it; and I love his four children and they all love me and we tell each other so often because telling a child that you love them is acceptable in this society even if you and they are the same sex and even after said child has grown up - and the youngest of his four children are (male fraternal twins) about 26 now I would guesstimate.) He as and his family are the closest thing I had to "family".

Another point: while people like me are a very small percentage of the population (I was a National Merit Scholarship finalist in high school, and that group is said to be less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the population as a whole (according to a recent Wikipedia article, 7,002,200,000 people so 1/2 of 1 percent is 35,011,000 (!) people) excluding my disabilities which decreases that percentage quite a bit I would imagine) there are still possibly many 100's of thousands if not millions of people who are smarter than I am. I just saw a magazine in a waiting room of one of my doctors the other day that had an article listing the "accomplishments" of a fair number of high-school students who were 18, 17, even 16 years of age and these "accomplishments" were really quite incredible. I don't remember many specific details (bad memory as is typical) but I do remember that one of them (a girl) developed a technology that could quickly "analyze" the contents of substances looking for poisons and the like by "shooting" neutrons derived from deuterium atoms at them in some way and that the Department of Homeland Security has engaged her to design a full-scale version of this device.) When the total population is 7 billion people it doesn't take a very large percentage of the population to come up with amazing things. This why the rate of technological change is said to be growing exponentially and why it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

And the final (really! :)) point that may not be obvious from the above: Despite all of the trials and tribulations and financial "fall outs" from my disabilities I am generally not an unhappy person. (Often quite frustrated and/or irritated but not unhappy.) This is because of all of the people in my life whom I love and who love me.
 
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