Question — Execute script when process runs?

[Aaron44126]

So I've been eyeing Process Lasso for a while and finally gave it a purchase today.  I've read much of the documentation and have a pretty good understanding of what it can do, and plan to put it to use with managing processes on my system as I like.

I have a question:  Is there any way to have Process Lasso notice when a certain process starts and then execute a script?  If so, is what is the "right way" to do this?

I noticed that there is a "launch a program" option in the Watchdog feature.  Would it make sense to set a rule like "process uses at least 0% CPU for 0 seconds" to get a script to run, or is there a better way to do it?  (If I did that, would the script run once, or would it be triggered continuously?)

Use case background —
I am very appreciative of Process Lasso's ability to set the Windows power profile when certain programs run and I will be putting that to use.  However, I am running Dell laptops and I also would like to change the laptop's "thermal mode".  Dell has a few different modes that affect the system's fan behavior which exist independently of the Windows power profile.  I wrote a command-line tool that can switch the thermal mode, I'm just looking for a way to automatically fire it automatically when certain programs run.

I also have one system that I use for gaming which has a boatload of RAM, and I've found that game loading times and stuttering behavior are reduced for some games if I pre-cache the game files into RAM, so I wrote a simple program to do that.  So, I'm also interested to see if I can get Process Lasso to kick off this program with certain parameters when I launch a particular game.


That's all, thanks for the great work!

[Jeremy Collake]

Presently, this type of action is possible, but a little awkward.

Would it make sense to set a rule like "process uses at least 0% CPU for 0 seconds" to get a script to run, or is there a better way to do it?  (If I did that, would the script run once, or would it be triggered continuously?)

You have the right idea. I recommend: Virtual memory (any metric) > 0 MB for 0 seconds.

The script will sometimes be relaunched, triggered again by the same instance. This will occur when the Lasso config/rules are changed (prolasso.ini written to), active config profile switched, Governor restarted, and potentially at other times. Your script will need be tolerant of that. In your case, it doesn't sound like it'd be a problem.

You aren't the first to ask about such a capability, and we do have plans to improve this. I'll update this thread when that work progresses.

I'm glad to see you are making the most of Process Lasso's automation, and really appreciate the feedback. If you have any other questions or ideas, don't hesitate to post them!

[Aaron44126]

Awesome, thanks...  I'll play with it and I'm sure I'll be able to find something that works.  I might do a little bit of custom work to support my use case (i.e. maybe a simple background program that watches for Windows power profile changes and uses that to drive changes to the Dell thermal mode... then I could just use the power profile automation features from Process Lasso to drive both).

I'm glad to see you are making the most of Process Lasso's automation, and really appreciate the feedback. If you have any other questions or ideas, don't hesitate to post them!

I guess if I had a "wishlist" it would basically be to be able to set up actions similar to Watchdog rules that fire automatically (once) when a matching process starts, and also when a matching process terminates.  ...Though I don't know if I would use any of the Watchdog actions other than "run a program" as most of the rest can be handled just by setting rules for priority/affinity/etc..

Otherwise, this seems to be everything that I would want in a "process management solution".  I'll let you know if anything else occurs to me while putting it to use.

(I had stared cobbling together my own solution for managing process priority/affinity/etc. before I found your tool.  Glad I didn't get terribly far down that road, ha.)

Thanks again!