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Version 3.18.0
March 2025
This release represents another fairly major code refactor in two key areas: how Desktop Info puts itself on the screen and how it collects performance metrics.
Change 1: The Desktop Info package now contains six executable files: The familiar transparent desktop attached application, the window application (W mode) and the screen saver application for both 64 bit and 32 bit architectures. The file names no longer identify the architecture, you can see that by examining the file properties. The new coding approach introduces clarity and gives me much finer control over how each version behaves. The secret word for the month is “polymorphism”. See General Usage.
Change 2: Because I'm having real issues with WMI performance and regular lockups, and I presume others are as well, I've starting implementing PDH (PerfLib) code to retrieve performance counters. In every case where performance data is collected, PDH is now the default with WMI as the fallback. See also the discussion on Retrieving Performance Metrics. The modified items are LOGICALDRIVES, PAGEFAULTS and CPU. New items are NETWORKPERF and PERF. Please test these items and let me know of any issues that prevent it from working on your system.
Change 3: LOGICALDRIVES will now get it's performance counters from PDH by default and fallback to WMI if that fails. Performance counters are not available for virtual drives. Because I'm retro-fitting this item, the existing return value names will continue to be used which don't necessarily correspond to PDH or WMI names.
Change 4: PAGEFAULTS will now get it's performance counters from PDH by default and fallback to WMI if that fails. Because I'm retro-fitting this item, the existing return value names will continue to be used which don't necessarily correspond to PDH or WMI names.
Change 5: CPU will now get it's performance counters from PDH by default and fallback to WMI if that fails. Because I'm retro-fitting this item, the existing return value names will continue to be used which don't necessarily correspond to PDH or WMI names.
Change 6: Added new item NETWORKPERF. This collects network interface performance metrics using PDH. It replaces the WMI item previously used.
Change 7: Added new item PERF. This is a general purpose item for retrieving any available performance metrics using PDH. This is the equivalent to the WMI item.
Change 8: With the addition of the PERF item, the CPUUSAGE item is now redundant and deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
Change 9: The REGISTRY item is deprecated and will be removed soon. If it does something that REG/REG2 doesn’t do, let me know.
Change 10: Removed the window mode toolbar. It was a failed experiment. I might try again at a later time.
Change 11: Added %dpi% to the predefined user variables.
Change 12: Added escape-chars common option.
Change 13: Reduced the time delay to react to scaling changes.
Change 14: Fixed my fix of OSBUILD2.
Change 15: Added timezone option to DATETIME so that daylight savings is correctly calculated for non-local time zones.
Change 16: Added user variables to DATETIME.
Change 17: Fixed background color bug in hyperlink.
Change 18: Added log-timing to [options].
Hi Glenn,
i've tested the new version of DesktopInfo and i noticed that the charts update every second regardless of the interval
parameter, at least when using CPUUSAGE, and the same happens with PERF.
I observed this on different PCs.
This is the code, with the version 3.17.1 works without problems:
CPUUSAGE=interval:5,row-text:Cpu Thread %1,chart:vbarfilled row-id:1 scale:linear width:300 max:100 series1:2 color1:00FF00,alarms:(%2 ge 80 #FFFF00) (%2 ge 90 #FF0000),display:%chart% %2[3.0f]%
Can you verify?
Thank you for the excellent work done so far with DesktopInfo.
Confirmed. The chart data should only update when new data comes in. I erroneously moved the call to the display refresh procedure which happens every second. In your case you will see 5 chart updates of the same values in a row then the next data update arrives and you will see 5 more chart updates of the same data... or something...Hi Glenn,
i've tested the new version of DesktopInfo and i noticed that the charts update every second regardless of the interval
parameter, at least when using CPUUSAGE, and the same happens with PERF.
I observed this on different PCs.This is the code, with the version 3.17.1 works without problems:
CPUUSAGE=interval:5,row-text:Cpu Thread %1,chart:vbarfilled row-id:1 scale:linear width:300 max:100 series1:2 color1:00FF00,alarms:(%2 ge 80 #FFFF00) (%2 ge 90 #FF0000),display:%chart% %2[3.0f]%
Can you verify?
Thank you for the excellent work done so far with DesktopInfo.
I take it from the lack of complaints that the new PDH code is working perfectly....
