Windows 7 on stage: scheduled tasks

[Dirk Offringa]

Hi there,
as I'm preparing my new show which includes migration from XP to Win7 on my live PC, during the process of optimization, I opened the task scheduler in the admin panel, and got an instant case of cold sweat. (As soon as i read stuff like "customer experience improvement" a huge array of red lights start flashing immediately, I get a shot of adrenaline that gets me ready for a whole night of fiddling around until I'm sure no trace whatever of this remains on my sytem/computer/mobile phone/lawn mower, you name it).

What do you guys think of this? A huge bunch of tasks are scheduled to take place when ordinary citizens are asleep (and left their computer running, of course!), but as it happens, I'm very likely to be on stage: several tasks are scheduled by default at sunday, 1:00 AM, or every day at that time. What about that?? In the middle of a song, will Windows start analyzing the drives, update the Windows Prefomance index and so on? Do you guys have experienced issues?

(Of course I immediately deactivated the customer experience stuff, I don't know if I should deactive the "application experience" stuff as well (I think I will, there's "experience" in there and that's no good sign), and there's 31 scheduled tasks left. I just want to finish to set up a computer that works, and then PLEASE leave it EXACTLY that way and NO THANKS on sundays, 1h00 AM, I'm ON STAGE and don't need a harddrive analysis or a video card benchmark... Or set a System Restore Point every day at midnight (Yep, that's the default setting!!)

Also, I see that I need to start from my backup drive at least once between 28 june 2012 and 08 july 2012 otherwise I exceed the Windows Validation Deadline: Win7 must validate every 90 days. Whatever that means. My backup drive just never goes onto the internet, it's supposed to work in an emergency situation, and I wouldn't want, in the middle of an emergency situation, get a warning: "sorry, this copy of Windows has expired"! What a mess.... never had that sort of worried with XP!

Please share your "experience"

Dirk

PS I installed Win7 3 days ago , and did that 3 times in a row on 2 separate drives plus my laptop. I know exactly what I did because I logged every step of it to be sure to do it right. I expressely declined to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program. Yet these tasks remained scheduled, and have been executed ayutomatically twice since then, according to the logs. I'm very upset about that.

[Burtan]

I must admit, I've never really found this options and now that I'm searching for it in the admin panel I cannot find it as well? However what I do is stopping the indexing of drives, disabled all graphics eye candy, disabled any maintenance stuff like auto-update, virus scanners etc. and disabled all the devices I don't need. Furthermore I checked the systemstart using executing "msconfig" to deselect autostart of things I don't need.
Mmh, I think that's about all. However, I'm not a professional musician thus I'm not logging everything I did on my system. Knock on wood, I did not experience any problems so far.

Ah I forgot about the energy settings, see your other thread...

[Dirk Offringa]

It's in the admin panel, task scheduler or whatever its called in your language.

Dirk

[Burtan]

I've alway thought about creating something like an embedded Windows7 with tools like vlite [http://www.vlite.net/] but I have not found one for W7 yet. With it you can select which services, drivers etc. to install.

[hisdudeness]

You can use vlite as well for Windows 7. I did so a couple of slipstreams for 32bit and 64bit versions of my Win7 "music system". Works very well and gets you the OS down to something around 6GB (without pagefile).
http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/153-vlite/

Edit: Dirk, I think the grace period is referring to 30 days of USAGE, not just 30 calendar days in a row from the date of your installation. But even the latter is the fact this might be some kind of a (legal) emergency trick:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-re ... -120-days/

[mhertzbe]

Hit the start button and type "task scheduler" in the search box. Then click on the program icon to start it. This allows you to see and control quite a few things that otherwise are mysteries as to how and when they are triggered.

Some antivirus suites can be configured to disable themselves when certain applications start running. I've attempted this with Norton 360 but frankly I don't know if it is working.

Disk indexing should disable itself based on the fact that the computer is busy running apps (right?? does it see midi and audio i/o as "activity" the same way it considers mouse and keyboard input?).

I always turn off my internet connection when performing, but I leave it on much of the time otherwise.

I've had no problems at all with Windows 7, but I certainly haven't tested it at all hours of the day and night so your concerns are valid.

M

[Dirk Offringa]

Thanks. I of course started wit the task scheduler (read 1st post!). There's a helluva lotta stuff being scheduled. And yes, most of it is scheduled when normal people are asleep (and are supposed to leave their computer on, talk about environmental concern!!!) and when we are on stage. I already experienced my virus program updater popping up in the middle of the show sayiong it couldn't connact to the internet, with a nice and loud "dinggggg"! although I had set windows soynds to "none". More and more programs override global windows settings. I just ditched the antivirus altogether. My live PC isn't on the internet anyway, my live stuff is on a separate network.

Dirk

[piert]

Hi Dirk,

Interesting thread. I am interested to learn how you have managed to blcok your music PC from internet and yet get all the updates for the software on your music PC?

Do you download all update stuff on an 'internet-connected (and virus protected)-PC' and then store on a (virus scanned) USB stick or external hard drive and bring it manually to your music PC?

I have not used any internet connection on my music PC for a long time now and consequently have not updated a lot of the software, such as internet explorer. So undoubtedly it is a 'sitting duck' whenever I connect it to the cruel world of the modern internet now......

Best regards,
Perry

[mhertzbe]

Oops... somehow didn't occur to me that task manager launched from admin panel could be the same "secret" program I launch from the start button. Let's see... how do I use these things...

As for windows sounds ending up in the live show, I'd think this wouldn't be a problem for most of us because we have some other (presumably) higher quality USB or FW-connected audio I/O that we use with Forte. Windows wouldn't go looking for and pick that output... unless perhaps it was the *only* audio device in the system??

[Dirk Offringa]

Yes, my professional system has only one audio interface enabled. I finally managed to find where exactly the virus program did trigger sounds, and managed to switch that off.

Dirk

[Dirk Offringa]

[piert]

[Dirk Offringa]

I immediately update the virus database directly. I'm not paranoid at a point that I fear getting infected with some new virus without even opening a browser, in the 1st minute that I connect the PC to a network that has a gateway to the internet. My previous live PC was always connected, didn't have an antivirus program installed, and I never got infected.

Dirk

[piert]

That is good (and reassuring) to know.

Thanks
Perry

[PnoMn]

i feel that since win7 there's no need to tweak the system as before.
i haven't done any tweaks on my laptop (acer timelinex) and it's up and running for more than one year now without any problems. all eyecandy is turned on, firewalls, virusscanners, even skype and dropbox are running - no trouble at all!
just checked my settings - i didn't even switch to "optimal power for background services" (don't know the correct english term, i guess you know what i mean)

just try to run win7 as it is. in case of trouble you can still turn off some stuff.