System Tray Icon on Startup (may be delayed)

Started by Jeremy Collake, July 22, 2012, 09:23:34 PM

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Jeremy Collake

This is a warning that the System Tray Icon may take a while to show on startup. This is intentional. A lot of processing is done before the initialization of the system tray backing window is done. We also prefer to wait and let the system 'settle down' before invoking the GUI of Process Lasso. So, give it some extra time ;).

Remember, the system tray icon is just the GUI. The core engine (processgovernor.exe) is good regardless. However, if you do get in a situation where the system tray icon is gone and launching ProcessLasso.exe does not work, terminate ProcessLasso.exe with the Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+ESC), then restart it. This shouldn't happen, as Process Lasso can recover from explorer crashes and such, but I have had reports of it not showing at startup. I now wonder if it is simply the extreme delay that may be experienced, at least in *some* cases. This is something I'm still investigating, but didn't consider it a blocker for v6 since nothing has changed (this theoretical situation - if there is one - is likely no better or worse).
Software Engineer. Bitsum LLC.

Miroku4444

Glad to see this is normal. I did notice it was the last to load on my system.

Jeremy Collake

#2
After some investigation, guidance has been updated here. Basically, as first indicated, this has *nothing* to do with Process Lasso and is simply the side-effect of it being the most recently (last installed) application that sets itself to start via the Task Scheduler. Applications set to start after it will indeed start *after it*. The Task Scheduler, it seems, waits for full process initialization before launching the next process.

CAUSE: Process Lasso v6 in NT6+ (Vista+) is the last to be installed in the Task Scheduler, and thus has a 'last' startup sequence. The startup sequence can be longer than you realize - extending minutes beyond when you can first use the explorer shell. Programs set to start *after* Process Lasso do indeed start after Process Lasso.

RESOLUTION: NONE REQUIRED. You will just have the minute (more or less) it takes to show up in the system tray at first user login, or you will have to re-arrange the order of Task Scheduler items. Note that security software can often slow things down, especially upon reboot of the PC (before scanned items get cached).

It is *possible* I may mitigate it by showing an early system tray icon 'place-holder' that gets launched via the registry Run key, as those are launched at user login more immediately in most cases.
Software Engineer. Bitsum LLC.