OS2World OLD-STATIC-BACKUP Forum

OS/2 - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: miturbide on 2012.04.12, 04:32:01

Title: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: miturbide on 2012.04.12, 04:32:01
I noticed today there was an update version (2012/04/10) of Desktop Maintenance Tool on the eCS Betazone. (dmt082.zip)

I quickly installed and added to the config.sys
"CALL=C:\Programs\DMT\DMT.EXE"

I didn't do anything else.

I rebooted and it putted a lot of icons on my desktop. (Check the screenshot).
It was a VM, no a critical system.
Title: Re: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: DougB on 2012.04.12, 07:40:05
QuoteI rebooted and it putted a lot of icons on my desktop. (Check the screenshot). It was a VM, no a critical system.

It warns you that that might happen. It is simply doing a very safe cleanup of some stuff that was probably deleted at one time, but never cleaned out of your INI files. If it is garbage, just delete them. If not, it should be easy to fix the problem.

I have installed DMT , and the update (which I believe is just a documentation update) on 4 real systems now. It seems to do what is advertized, and has caused no trouble, yet (Rich Walsh does very good work, so I don't expect any trouble - thanks Rich, if you see this). Whether it really helps, or not, is yet to be seen, but my initial impression is that it should help. The main "problem" that I see with DMT, is that those who boot once a year, whether the system needs it or not, won't get much benefit from it, and it may cause trouble. Those who boot daily, or even weekly, should benefit. It is probably a good idea to boot three times, to get the three backups made early in the game, in case DMT decides that it needs to restore a backup.

I think I would recommend doing a cleanup of your INI files (at least run Cleanini /c /multipass /Restart), before installing DMT, but it isn't real important to do that. I suspect that it would have prevented the surfacing of icons on your desktop.

FWIW, I have set DMT to clean at every run (every time I boot), more to see what it does, than having a need for it to run that often (it only takes a couple of seconds, even on my oldest, slowest, machine). I also set it to delete all removable drive letters, and UNC names, since I effectively do that with Cleanini, and FPOS, anyway, and I have nothing on my removables that might be lost (it is pretty safe, most of the time, and if it isn't, the user will probably have a good idea about what might happen, and why they shouldn't allow that).

I would say that this is not an ideal solution to the INI file problems, but it is a step in the right direction. Be sure to READ the docs.
Title: Re: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: dryeo on 2012.04.12, 08:50:18
Quote from: DougB on 2012.04.12, 07:40:05
The main "problem" that I see with DMT, is that those who boot once a year, whether the system needs it or not, won't get much benefit from it, and it may cause trouble. Those who boot daily, or even weekly, should benefit. It is probably a good idea to boot three times, to get the three backups made early in the game, in case DMT decides that it needs to restore a backup.

Rich mentioned in his announcement that it will also clean the ini files once a day.

Quote
I think I would recommend doing a cleanup of your INI files (at least run Cleanini /c /multipass /Restart), before installing DMT, but it isn't real important to do that. I suspect that it would have prevented the surfacing of icons on your desktop.

When I first used it, the log said that due to errors in my ini files, that no backup was made and the log was fairly big. I ran checkini /C /Y:2 and rebooted which seemed to make DMT happy.

Title: Re: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: melf on 2012.04.12, 12:19:34
Quote from: miturbide on 2012.04.12, 04:32:01
I noticed today there was an update version (2012/04/10) of Desktop Maintenance Tool on the eCS Betazone. (dmt082.zip)

I quickly installed and added to the config.sys
"CALL=C:\Programs\DMT\DMT.EXE"

I didn't do anything else.

I rebooted and it putted a lot of icons on my desktop. (Check the screenshot).
It was a VM, no a critical system.

See http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=3215
Title: Re: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: DougB on 2012.04.12, 23:03:38
QuoteRich mentioned in his announcement that it will also clean the ini files once a day.

This may be somewhat misleading. My log has not been updated since the last time I booted (about 2 days ago). As I understand it (and as appears to be happening), DMT runs when you boot. If the time span (default 1 day) has not, yet, expired, it simply terminates without doing anything. If the settings are such that it should run AT THAT BOOT, it will do it's thing. If you don't boot for one year, DMT will not run for one year, no matter what the settings say (maximum setting is 30 days, minimum setting is every boot).  I can see that saved INI files could be a little out of date, in a case like that, and a large amount of corrections could be waiting to be made, which may also cause trouble. To overcome that, the program would need to restart the desktop every time it runs, and doing that automatically could be somewhat hazardous, depending on what else is happening when it is done.

As I said, it is a good start, and it should help, but it is not really what is needed to do the whole job properly. That would be the reason why the instructions say that DMT does not entirely replace the need to clean your INI files occasionally.
Title: Re: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: RobertM on 2012.04.13, 03:25:09
I'm wondering... it shouldn't be difficult to grab a list of the running threads and processes to see if anything is using the WPS... combine that with a user defined "scheduler" similar to how one can set an AV program to scan at a certain time on a certain dat
e, and perhaps having it kill the WPS and scanning wont cause issues.

The only obstacle i can see that may need to be overcome is delaying the WPS restart - but while I'm not versed on how that can be accomplished, i seem to remember some app or utility or installer or Warp updater that somehow managed that.


Unrelated question... does anyone know if this will work on WSeB and/or MCP?
Title: Re: Desktop Maintenance Tool
Post by: DougB on 2012.04.13, 07:31:58
I am sure that DMT could be made to stop the WPS, run itself, and start the WPS again (perhaps it only needs to stop the WPS to store the new INI files, then start again). A number of programs do that sort of thing (CleanINI, CHECKINI, WarpIn), but lets see if what exists already causes problems, before going any further. So far, I am pretty well convinced that it does what it is supposed to do, but I haven't seen any attempt to restore an older INI file, yet. If all works as it should, I suspect that that part of the program will never be used (unless something else causes a problem). I also suspect that more things can be added to the clean list.

Quotedoes anyone know if this will work on WSeB and/or MCP?

The only reason that it might not work,  that I can think of, is if it is somehow keyed to eCS. Try it.You could use the read only option. If it runs that way, it will probably run as it is supposed to, from CONFIG.SYS.