CPU Monitor adds an icon to the Windows 95 System Tray, which shows the current utilisation of the systems processor.
Installation
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CPU Monitor doesn't have an installation program. All that's required is the program itself (CPUMon.exe) and the VB5 Runtime DLL (MSVBVM50.DLL). If the runtime file is not present Dial-Up Networking Monitor will not start. The runtime file can be downloaded from my homepage (URL below) or from Windows95.com (http://www.windows95.com).
Once downloaded, put the runtime file into the Windows\System directory and CPUMon.exe into the directory of your choice. Then, create the usual shortcuts for your Desktop and Start Menu.
Usage
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Use the Settings window to change the number of times the icon is updated per second, which icon is used and whether to show the current utilisation in the icons 'tooltip'.
To open the Details window, either right-click the icon and select Details or double-click the icon. Once shown, the Details gives the option to 'Stay on top', and will remain visible over any other window.
Known Issues
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I'm still seeing some (although fewer) problems with the icon 'stalling' -- normally at 100%. What is interesting is that when this happens I can close CPU Monitor and open the Windows 95 System Monitor and the CPU Usage in there is also stuck at 100%. This kind of implies that the problem isn't just in CPU Monitor. I'd appreciate any feedback on this.
In some installations, CPU Monitor requires an updated system DLL. This becomes apparent when you load CPU Monitor and receive the following message:
"The file MSVBVM50.DLL is linked to the the exported routine OLEAUT32.DLL:421 which is not present"
To fix this, download the following file from my homepage and unzip into your \Windows\System directory:
Versions from v1.3b5 onwards require an updated VB5 runtime module. This is indicated by the following message when CPU Monitor is loaded:
"Wrong version of run-time DLL"
To fix this, download (or re-download, if you had the previous version) the following file from my homepage and unzip into your \Windows\System directory:
- Added 'Tachometer' icons. Note, these icons are sometimes not very clear, depending on your 'Caption Buttons' settings (Control Panel | Display | Appearance). This is because Windows will allow the size of the taskbar to be modified, and therefore it must 'stretch' the icons added to the system tray to display them. If the tachometer icons are stretched, the red 'needle' sometimes can't be seen very well.
- Removed appearance options for graph. No-one has requested they get finished and they are a total pain in the behind to implement, so I removed them. They may come back in a future release.
- 'Stay on Top' setting is now saved. Next time the Details window is opened the previous state is set.
v1.3b4
- Changed homepage to new location.
- Graph has 3D look.
- Re-introduced markers to show modules loading/unloading.
v1.3b3
- Changed the way the graph is handled in the Details view. This now totally solves the problem detailed below for previous releases where the graph would show incorrectly is partially 'covered' by another window.
- Yet more changes to the way the performance figures are queried, which should further improve the problem with the icon 'stalling'. Any more feedback on this is appreciated.
v1.3b2
- Some more subtle changes to stop the problem where CPUMon simply stops updating the icon. If the icon 'stalls', simply move the mouse over the icon and this should kick-start the icon again.
- Some changes to the way the Details window is re-painted. This still doesn't get round the problem where covering the right side of the window stops the graph being drawn (see below), but improves general painting of the graph as windows move over it.
v1.3b1
- Performance data should be started and stopped correctly, so no more clashes with other applications reading or writing performance data (i.e. Dial-Up Networking) should occur.
- Settings now has an option to include the usage in the tooltip of the system tray icon. This was put in at user request, but isn't particularly helpfull, as the tooltip is only displayed when the mouse has been left over the icon, and the text isn't updated when visible. Therefore, the default for this setting is off.
- Added the Details window. This is where most of the work has been done since the last release ... and where most of the remaining work needs to be done before a full release. Current good and bad points are:
- No code is in place to redraw the graph when it has been covered up by another window (i.e. it needs painting).
- To reduce flicker, the method to add new data is to get Windows to 'scroll' the window to the left and simply draw what's required for the new points -- i.e. the thin strip at the right end. This works well most of the time, however, if the right hand end is hidden by another window, the whole scroll process goes very wrong, and no new details are drawn.
- Stay on top works well. Naturally, this gets round both the previous problems.
- Stay on top setting is not saved and restored; the Details window always starts with this setting off.
- Double click the graph to make it full screen. If possible, I'll try and make the window sizable when in this mode at some point.
- The Detail window settings are mostly hard-coded at this point. The Settings window has the stuff for changing the settings, but none of it does anything yet, and so it's all disabled. Colour settings are obvious. The Rounding settings force the values to be rounded to a certain amount. The default is 5.
Contact
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The latest version will be available on my homepage, at:
