Using

The Program

Run the program from My Computer, Explorer, a DeskTop Shortcut, the Start Menu, and/or add it to your Startup Group (as it was made for) to always have it running as I do. When you run the program, you should not select minimized or maximized for it's ShortCut property, it should be run "NORMAL".

Running the First Time

The display initially updates every 5 seconds.

Network drives if selected update every 10 timing cycles to reduce Network Traffic.

To Hide the Control Buttons to save screen space, Right Click the Graph . (Again to ReShow)

To hide the title bar and save room, just Right Click the graph.

Click on the O and set Options such as Drives to Monitor and Reminder checking and save.

The Graph normally displays CPU usage. You can switch between CPU usage or Internet Activity by Left Clicking on the Graph.

If the graph is displaying CPU usage, it changes from Green (Below 30%), to Yellow (below 95%), and then to Red as CPU usage changes. ItÆs just a general indication about how busy your computer is at that time. Look for programs that use a lot of CPU time and try not to run them all the time as they will impact your system performance, especially when multitasking.

If the graph is displaying Internet Activity , it will show send data on the left and received data on the right.

The Disk Drive Letters Change color from normal, Blue, above 50MB (Normal), to Green below 50MB (OK, but watch), and to Red below 10 MB (Time to clean up your disk). Network Drives have an underlined letter for identification.

On most systems the physical memory displayed in the MEM box will not vary that much; This is because Windows is trying to optimize your system performance by always using most of your physical memory. For example, if you close a program, Windows will simply make your disk cache size larger to prepare for the next program. Then, when you run the next program, it will shrink the disk cache size to allow room for the program to go into physical memory. If the memory is at 0 or 100% a lot, then you probably need more memory installed. 128 Meg is the normal minimum where swapping to disk is reduced but 256 Meg is now better. (Windows is now pretty good at using virtual memory, so if your computer is fast enough for your needs it may not slow you down as much as previous Windows swapping did. Of course, more memory will still speed things up.) Instead of monitoring your Physical Memory, you can monitor your SwapFile usage or size. That is probably a better indication of memory usage anyway. Watch how large the swapfile gets as compared to how it is when your system first starts up. You can monitor the Actual Size or the amount of the SwapFile that is in current active use. If it doesnÆt shrink back down after a while of inactivity, you may want to restart. Also, watch how big it gets to get an idea if more memory would help a lot and to get an idea of how much disk space it can use.

Activate or Deactivate the Timer Function through Quick Access Window or by Right Clicking the Time Display.

Left Click the M button for the Quick Access Window. You can easily access many of the features here so you don't have to remember the shortcut keys. In addition you can right click the M (or use Quick Access) for more Memory, System, and Windows info to show up by quickly running the Microsoft built in System Info. You can Right Click on some of the labels on the main small window to change their properties including Fonts, Colors, Settings, etc. You will have 8 buttons for the options. These buttons' properties can NOT be changed. Move the mouse over the button and it will tell you what the button does on the Title Bar if you have the Title Bar visible. READ THE BUTTONS subject below carefully to find out about many easily overlooked features!

Buttons

Options

More Info window

Examples