ETC and WIndows services, processes, etc.

Hi Bruce,

In general, ETC software tries not to leave background services running when they are not needed. Most of the software you mention (Obsession Offline, Irideon Composer, Lightmanager, etc), don't actually run anything unless they are, well, running.

The only real exception are the Net3 services. Typically these are only started when you need them (by going into GCE and selecting the services), but depending on how you installed them they could be running automatically.

One way to check this is to hold down the windows key and press R, then type services.msc [Enter]. This will give you a list of running background services. Check any with ETC in the name, like ETC DHCP service or ETC Time Service. The startup type on these should be manual, and they should not be started unless you delibarately started them. If  they are set to automatic startup, you can disable them here.

Other than that - I think maybe you are just experiencing the joy of being a Windows computer owner! Personally I reinstall everything on my laptop every 1-2years as things do just seem to get gummed up. One other thing is the more software you have installed and the more files you have on your PC, the more fragmented your harddrive will become. It may be worth running the windows defragmentation tool for a clearup.

Hope that helps,

Tom

Hey Tom,

Where does autoexec.bat play in all this now in winXP?  Every time you make a change to the serial port config in LM, it gets updated, but I'm not even sure it is actually used by LM or winXP.  Am I correct?

What are the services required for NET3/ACN?  I know SLP, but what else?  I have learned about what happens when you have GCE's DHCP running, and then you connect to another network that already has a DHCP service running (it involves really pissed off co-workers when you crash business applications because of IP conflicts)

And what about registry changes for ETC software?  Are there notes to them?

Next Question: 

How about TCP ports?  What ports are required for various ETC Net services? (Video nodes, dmx nodes, ACN, etc)

Thanks

(I think time was that your machine would experienced a catastrophic crash often enough that it never got a change to get filled with bog...of course Windows 3  only had two updates: 3.1 & 3.11.  Not the update every other day...)

Regarding Autoexec - have a search on the MSDN. Any answer we gave here would be incomplete and out-of-date. It is still used by Windows XP and can be most easily edited in "msconfig".

All Registry additions are removed when the relevant application is uninstalled. It's definitely not recommended to manually modify any Registry keys, as the result can be hard to predict.

All "Net3 Services" have "ETC" in the name, except the Service Location Protocol service because that is part of Windows.

What are you trying to do? This thread feels like you're feeling in the dark for a solution to a problem, and it's much easier to help if you can describe the problem itself.

Mostly I'm trying to get my laptop to not be sooooo slow.  And I'm really trying to avoid a re-install of everything.  I have so many vendor's software loaded, that I cant tell what is who is why and when about a lot of whats running.  I know early ETC software installed to C:/ETC and not in ../program files...  I guess its win95/98 vintage software.  My machine started as winXP home SP1...that is many many hrs of updates to current winXPpro SP3 (or 4?)

As more and more software becomes "on-line" software, there seems to be alot more going on behind the scenes.  I guess I would find a document listing ETC's processes useful. (http://www.processlibrary.com ((I'm just searching...not running their software))) 

Also, what about TCP and UDP ports?  What ports need to pass for ETC applications to work properly.   That would also help.

BTW, do you know what happens when you have GCE's DHCP server running when you join another network that also has a DHCP server running?...(I'll just get that updated CEM+ firmware)  You get really pissed off co-workers...and crashed databases because of IP conflicts.  Just a little gotcha I discovered a little while back.

brucek said:

Mostly I'm trying to get my laptop to not be sooooo slow

I'm afraid you're really looking in the wrong place for that kind of problem.

Quite simply, nothing from ETC runs until you decide to run it, unless you told the installer you wanted it to (eg ticking the lighting console option).
Everything that *might* run automatically is either a Service or in the "Startup" folder on your Start menu, thus easily disabled as described by Tom.

The most likely culprits for this kind of slowness are fragmented hard disks, over-eager virus scanners, viruses/trojans and the general 'auto-update' stuff (iTunes, Windows Update, Adobe Updater etc etc). On top of that, many of the 'newer' versions of things like iTunes and Adobe Reader are many orders of magnitude slower than the originals, as they are being designed for newer PCs with multi-core CPUs etc. My home PC really doesn't like the newest Acrobat, so I use Foxit Reader instead which is much faster.

To be honest, you're more likely to get useful help on a PC Repair forum. None of our software adds much to the load - the MS Office Toolbar alone takes up several orders of magnitude more memory and processing than the whole of Net3 Services!

On the DHCP thing - that's why it's disabled by default. Multiple DHCP servers on one network are generally a Bad Thing with quite unpredictable results, unless you really know what you're doing.

brucek said:

Mostly I'm trying to get my laptop to not be sooooo slow.  And I'm really trying to avoid a re-install of everything.

I had similar performance issues on my laptop and desktop.  I tried defragging the hard drive with the XP Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter, but had limited success.  Then I tried out Diskeeper ( http://www.diskeeper.com ) and also PerfectDisk ( http://www.perfectdisk.com ).  They both have 30-day free trials and do a much more thorough job.  I'd highly recommend backing up your critical data first.  I ended up buying PerfectDisk, and my systems have seen huge performance increases.  They both also have an option to optimize system files on the next reboot.  My pagefile.sys was all over the place.