Process Lasso

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Clearing up Misconceptions

There has been some understandable user confusion about Process Lasso, so first let's clear up a few common misconceptions. If your question isn't answered here, then see the FAQ below.

Misconception #1: Process Lasso is yet another super-charged task manager

NO! Process Lasso is NOT a task manager at all. It has some task management capabilities, but its not meant to replace a task manager. Its meant to act in the background, automatically enforcing rules upon processes in order to improve your system responsiveness (or for whatever other purpose you desire).

Misconception #2: Process Lasso needs to be tweaked for your specific computer

Process Lasso is designed so that it operates well on any system without ANY configuration changes. You simply need to let Process Lasso's ProBalance do its thing - automatically lowering priorities of certain processes under specific conditions. There is no need to change any settings at all. Could you theoretically get a little more responsiveness out of your PC by changing Process Lasso settings? Yes.. but the additional gains would be marginal and it would require an expert and lots of trial and error to know what changes are appropriate for your specific PC. Therefore, its best to not make any changes - play it safe. This way, you know you get the benefits of ProBalance and can be sure of no harmful side-effects induced by inappropriate configuration changes.

Misconception #3: A user needs to set default priorities on their processes to rank their importance.

NO, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. The idea isn't to reprioritize all your processes, rating them in importance to you. Doing that is risky and harmful to your PC performance. Just let Process Lasso do its job, UNLESS you know what you are doing.

Misconception #4: Process Lasso is only for geeks

No, its for anyone with a computer. Most people should simply install it and 'forget about it'. It'll be there, doing its job. Its interface may seem technical, but you don't ever have to use its interface. It just works.

Misconception #5: Process Lasso is only for older computers

It may be true that older computers get the most benefit from Process Lasso, but Process Lasso is helpful to even brand new 'top of the line' PCs. Additionally, its extra features are quite handy for anyone (such as anti-sleep processes and High Performance Power processes). Those with a lot of CPU cores may also enjoy the default CPU affinty feature, where they can limit programs to specific CPUs - keeping the others free for use by other procesess.

Misconception #6: Process Lasso makes things run FASTER

Do NOT expect Process Lasso (or any other utility) to make things run faster. Instead, Process Lasso's ProBalance will help prevent micro-lags, mouse jerkiness, and other related problems. Please do not confuse speed with responsiveness. Here are Bitsum, we don't BS around. Our software does what it does, and is no magic elixr that can solve every PC problem or make your PC two years newer :).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Questions

First, its worth noting that there's a real problem here with jargon. Non-technical users may seem overwhelmed. I'll try to switch between technical jargon and layman terms to help give some contextual reference that may aid in deducing the meaning of jargon.

If the question you have isn't here, or isn't answered well enough here, send an email to Bitsum Technologies.

Is the free build completely free?

Yes, home and academic users can freely use it for as long as they want. However, after the product has been installed a while, a couple features are disabled and some nags are shown to encourage the user to upgrade to Process Lasso Pro. These nags are tolerable, as they are meant to be reminders, not to annoy. Even after this point, the software is still quite usable and not by any means crippled. These actions help us to continue to publish a free edition. We encourage you to give Process Lasso a try. It may be just what you need, and the Pro build may be well worth the price of a couple cheese burgers.

What is the difference between the free and Pro versions of Process Lasso?

The differences are described here.

What exactly is a 'process'?

When you run a program on your computer, it creates a process. Every program you have running is represented by a process. When you have multiple copies of a program running, it has multiple processes. For instance, if you were to run Microsoft Word, it would create a process named 'msword.exe'. Each process has its own memory and threads (you can think of threads as tasks for your CPU to execute). Furthermore, each process is isolated from other processes, so that a crash in one program won't cause a crash in another.

How do get Process Lasso to manage the processes of all users currently logged in, not just my own?

During the install, you are asked if you want to run Process Lasso with 'highest' rights. This is in the last configuration dialog. Simply check this box during install and any instance of Process Lasso will manage the processes of all users. However, this is not recommended unless you are running the core engine as a service. Process Lasso is designed to have an instance of the core engine running in each active user context, managing the processes for that user. This means Bob will have an instance of the core engine (processgovernor.exe) managing his processes, and Jane will have an instance of the core engine managing her processes. Also note that by default each user also has his or her own configuration and log, but that can be changed during install.

How do I assign a shortcut key combination to show the Process Lasso main window?

While there isn't a built in shortcut key to show the Process Lasso main window, you can easily add one yourself. To do this, right click on the Process Lasso start menu shortcut and select 'Properties'. There is a field 'shortcut key'. Using that field, you can assign Process Lasso a shortcut key (i.e. CTRL+ALT+K). Now when you press that shortcut combination, you'll see Process Lasso's main window pop up.

Why isn't Process Lasso's ProBalance acting on the processes associated with my anti-virus software?

Since anti-virus software processes are sensitive to priority adjustments, many common anti-virus softwares are excluded from restraint. Consider the real-time scanner of your anti-virus software. Whenever a file is opened, the process opening the file must WAIT for the scanning to complete. So, you don't want to lower the priority of the real-time scanner, as that would not make things happen quicker. In fact, it would have just the opposite effect. Other software isn't as careful as Process Lasso, but we wanted to DO THINGS RIGHT! .. even if it means sometimes people think that the product isn't not working because it skips a process that is using a lot of CPU.

If your anti-virus software isn't on our hard-coded exclusion list, that's no big deal because it probably would never get acted on anyway. However, if you see Process Lasso's ProBalance acting upon it, then you may want to exclude it from restraint. Most of the time, this isn't an issue since ProBalance would only act on a non-excluded critical process of anti-virus software under rare conditions. In the majority of cases, the default settings themselves implicitly exclude critical anti-virus processes.

Will Process Lasso's ProBalance adversely interefere with any of my progams?

No. All dynamic adjustments Process Lasso makes are completely safe and have virtually no possibility of severe complications. Additionally, after years of real-world testing, we've identified and fixed many specific interoperability issues that could have affected performance. Process Lasso is a very mature and well tested product.

What is the white line I sometimes see on the graph?

This line represents the CPU history of the process(es) you have currently selected. Yes, this is not indicated on the graph legend.

Process Lasso does not seem to take any action to 'restrain' overly active processes. What is going on?

By default, Process Lasso excludes the foreground process (the one that has keyboard and mouse focus). You should click to another window to allow Process Lasso to restrain the process. Alternatively, you can turn off exclusion of foreground processes. The occasional restraint of foreground processes won't hurt anything since any active background processes will also be restrained at the same time. Of course, by restraint we simply mean temporarily lower the priority class, not any sort of actual limit on CPU usage (see ProBalance docs).

Is Process Lasso recommended for gaming?

Yes, it will help improve the responsiveness of your games and reduce the occurances of lags and freezes. Older versions of Process Lasso required you to manually exclude your game processes from ProBalance restraint, but newer versions will not ever restrain foreground processes (by default).

Does Process Lasso's ProBalance out-of-control restraint slow down processes?

No. Process Lasso 'restrains' processes by temporarily lowering their priority. This simply allows other processes more of a chance to use the CPU, IF there are any processes needing the CPU. If there aren't, and until there aren't, the restrained process is still able to consume as many CPU cycles as are available to it. Therefore, a restrained process doesn't really slow down, though it can now yield to another process like a nice citizen of your computer. That little yield will make a big difference in responsiveness, but not a big difference in the speed of the background process ;).

For more information, see How Does Process Lasso's Restraint Work?

How will ProBalance affect CD/DVD Optical burners?

CD/DVD Burners typically don't use enough of the processor to be restrained, as they are usually waiting on disk or optical drive I/O. It is actually more likely that a buffer underrun would be prevented by Process Lasso because if you were in such a high-load situation, the other offending processes would have their priorities lowered, there-by giving the burning application more access to CPU cycles. Even if the burning process itself got lowered in priority, it'd be no worse off than without Process Lasso since the other active processes would surely have been lowered as well, there-by giving it equal footing, as it had originally.

Also, some burners raise their own priority and Process Lasso will NOT lower the priority of processes that have raised their own priorities, depending on the configuration of Process Lasso.

The bottom line is: Process Lasso is most likely to HELP, and even in a worst case scenario it shouldn't make things worse. That said, adding Optical Burning apps to the Process Restraint Exclusions list is probably a good idea, but far from necessary.

Process Lasso was designed to, above all, 'do no harm'.

Should I turn on foreground boosting?

Windows already does foreground boosting by giving foreground threads 3x longer time slices than background threads [depending on Windows version and configuration] and slightly increasing the thread priority. Process Lasso is capable of doing additional foreground boosting is a 'smart' way that compliments this built in mechanism. However, unless you require it, we generally don't recommend this option be on because the foreground process/thread is probably already boosted as much as will be effective by Windows. Additional boosting probably won't make a difference for most people, but it can in some situations. You can play with foreground thread and/or process boosting and see if you like it, as it should cause no harm -- but just may not benefit as much as you'd hope. The background process 'restraint' is more important function of Process Lasso and the proper way to handle situations where background processes are interfering with the foreground thread, which is already boosted in priority by Windows.

What is the difference between foreground priority class and foreground thread boosting?

Foreground priority class boosts the priority class of the entire process (aka application, or program) that is in the foreground (meaning it has the focus of the keyboard and/or mouse). In contrast, foreground thread boosting only boosts the single thread in that in the foreground. A layman could consider a thread as a piece of a program, instead of the entire program. Its brother and sister threads in the same process are not boosted.

This other program that does something similar seemed to act when Process Lasso didn't, or vice-versa. What's the deal?

Automatically managing process/thread priorities without interferring with system and application operation, and effectively increasing system responsiveness is a delicate business. It could be done in a dumb sort of way that 'just does it'. That's not Process Lasso. Process Lasso was designed to interfere as little as possible with the Windows scheduler. In fact, it is designed to compliment and work along-side the Windows scheduler. Unfortunately, many other products that have a less sophisticated approach may not be so elegant. However, in some cases alternate products may be desireable. Our product is free. We invite you to find what's right for you.

Why don't you recommend using the trim virtual memory function?

RAM is your fastest storage medium. You generally want to keep as much data in it as possible, not force pages out to the page file so you have more 'free' RAM for the system cache or new application launches. When you force pages out, they simply have to be reloaded again later as page faults occur on them (see other answer for explanation of page faults). For more information, try this article.

What does the system responsiveness metric indicate?

It represents the ability of the thread messages subsystem to keep up with thread/window message demand. The exact way we calculate this we don't publish, but its a pretty simple and accurate measurement.

What does it mean when the system tray icon changes to the traffic light?

If your settings are the default, that means a process priority was automatically lowered via the process restraint mechanism.

What are the highlighted portions of the graph?

These are times when a process's priority was temporarily lowered to improve system responsiveness. Seeing the highlight helps visualize the effects on system responsiveness, as shown by the green line on the graph.

What is 'More strictly enforce default priorities and affinities', aka 'forced mode'?

Sometimes applications like to control their own priorities. Process Lasso doesn't try to fight with them, instead only making a single attempt to set the default priority and/or affinity for the process. If you want Process Lasso to aggressively and forcibly enforce your default priorities and affinities, forced mode will do that. If you have a process that isn't staying at the default priority or affinity, you can use this option. It should be noted though that application that set their own priorities or affinities may be doing so for a good reason.

What is this 'thread boost' or 'Windows dynamic thread priority boosting' in the process priority setting?

When this is enabled for a process, Windows temporarily boosts the priority of threads for that process under certain conditions (when it leaves a wait state). For specific information, see this MSDN page about Windows dynamic thread priority boosting. Turning this off can severely impact the performance of applications that have a graphical user interface (a window). For background applications, this setting is not usually important.

What is the '(*)' shown after priorities in the process list?

That indicates whether or not Windows dynamic thread priority boosting is enabled for that process (see other question about thread priority boosting for explanation).

What about I/O prioritization?

Vista's I/O prioritization is based on the priority of the thread doing the I/O, which is dependent on the priority class of the process doing the I/O. Therefore, adjustment of the thread priorities will propagate to the I/O of that thread. Specific I/O prioritization is not supported.

Process Lasso isn't minimizing when it is start at login, what is wrong?

This is probably due to the '/tray' parameter getting lost from the startup entry in the registry. The easiest way to fix it is to reinstall Process Lasso (no need to uninstall first, so your settings should be kept).

What about virtual memory prioritization?

Vista and above tag virtual memory pages with a priority, assigned by ReadyBoost. These priorities can be read, but are less easily adjusted. We are implementing a way to work with them, but we generally recommend users stay away from messing with default memory priorities. Remember, Windows and ReadyBoost are designed to work as optimal as possible. Too much tweaking can make matters worse. Process Lasso does a great job as is, so maybe you don't really need this feature.. though we will add it eventually.

I purchased the product, but am still seeing nags. What is wrong?

The Pro build is a completely separate download from the free build. Therefore, you likely mistakenly reinstalled the free version. You must be sure to install the copy you download from our User Services area.

I added critical system processes to the 'disallowed proceses' list and now my I've got problems. What do I do?

You need to delete your Process Lasso settings (located in the INI file). If you can't get to it, and can't use the GUI, try booting into safe mode. You can see where it is located at in the about box of Process Lasso. Uninstalling Process Lasso will also allow you to recover from this situation.

Does Process Lasso benefit Vista too?

Yes, Process Lasso is designed to work with Vista and it will have the same benefits as it does under XP. Furthermore, Process Lasso has some Vista specific features that compliment Vista's CPU scheduler enhancements.

Does Process Lasso work with Windows 7?

Yes! It is fully compatible with Windows 7. In fact, our primary development machine is now running Windows 7.

How can I run the core engine as a service under a specific user account in Windows Vista Home Edition? It doesn't include secpol.msc.

Since Vista Home and Starter editions don't include the local security policy management console snap-in, you must manually assign the SeServiceLogonRight token to user(s). You can do this by using Microsoft's NTRIGHTS console mode utility (download, info). Open an administrative console and run 'NTRIGHTS -u myusername +r SeServiceLogonRight'. From this point forward, the user you specified will have the right to logon as a service.

Alternatively, you could chose to run the Process Lasso core engine as a system service, instead of a service under a specific user account.

For most other editions of Windows, run 'secpol.msc' and edit "Local Security Policies \ User Rights Assignment \ Logon as a service".

I reinstalled Process Lasso and now the core engine won't start, what's the problem?

In Windows 7, this issue sometimes happens when you change your Process Lasso installation option from Highest rights to Normal rights. You must reboot your computer to resolve the problem. It seems that Windows 7 can cache the application security settings, resulting in the inability of the GUI to launch the core engine.

When I select my non-English language, I see '???????' in many places. How do I fix that?

To fix this (with some side effects, read below), go to the Control Panel, Regional and Language Settings, Advanced Tab. There, change the default language for non-unicode programs to whatever your selected language is. This problem is because not all of Process Lasso has (yet) been converted to unicode, so the proper system locale must be set for string conversions to work correctly. However, making this change may mean that your other applications don't use the correct character set, so be careful! An alternative may be just to use English, if you are able to read it.

What is the working set, commit, and private working set memory size?

The working set is the amount of physical memory (RAM) that a process is currently consuming. The commit size (aka commit charge) is the total amount of virtual memory, excluding certain special types of allocations, that is allocated. The commit size includes virtual memory that is residing on the page file(s) and/or in physical memory (RAM). Since some types of memory are not counted in the commit size, it is possible for the working set size to be greater than the commit size.

The private working set is the amount of unshared memory a process has allocated. This metric excludes shared pages that may be mapped into (sharded amongst) several processes.

Can I do some further reading on how the Windows CPU scheduler works?

Sure, here are some links, and I'll add more as time allows. These are all third party links and articles.