Temporarily stopping gadgets

[xwb]

I'm running 3 clock gadgets with times of different countries where my contacts are. The problem is when I run some programs like Skype, it says I have too many applications running. It doesn't moan when the gadgets are not running.

I can shut down the gadgets but then I have to re-initialize the 3 clock gadgets to start them up again.

Is there a simple way to
[ul]
[li]Stop all gadgets without closing them down completely[/li]
[li]Restart all stopped gadgets[/li]
[/ul]

 

[goombawaho]

What's the precise message you get and is it from Windows or from Skype? I'd say a better way to tackle this would be to minimize the programs you have running (both opened and background processes) in order to optimize the environment for Skype.

And/or add more memory. How much RAM do you have?

 

[BadBigBen]

why not use a bat script to do it for you, e.g.

@echo off
tskill sidebar
if %errorlevel%==1 start sidebar

save it out and assign a hot-key to it (ALT&SHIFT&G (as an example)) then all you have to do is hit the hot-key or double-click it's icon and poof the sidebar is gone, hit it again and poof there it is again...

PS: works for me...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[linney]

What if you add Additional Clocks via Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\ Date and Time and cut down on some of the Gadgets that way?

Are you aware that recently Gadgets were considered a security risk and the way around it (at the moment) is to disable all Gadgets.

Vulnerabilities in Gadgets could allow remote code execution

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2719662

 

[xwb]

The Skype message is Your computer speed is very low

It is a 1.6GHz N270 (Atom) with 4Gb RAM. There is nothing else running other than the gadgets and postit notes. When I had the second hand on the gadget clocks, the CPU runs at 100%. Switched off the second hand and the CPU went back to normal.

Thanks BBB, I'll try that.

Linney - didn't know about that feature. Nice one. Is there a way of getting a third clock on?

 

[rclarke250]

I don't think it has 4GB of ram. It may have a 4GB SSD, but it should only have 512MB/1GB standard, or if upgraded 2 GB max. It's a 32 bit single core cpu, and most were paired with a 945GSE chipset in tablets, and netbooks. Also, it is single channel memory, and almost always, would only have 1 dimm socket, if at all. Although it does have hyperthreading, and can process 2 threads at a time, the relatively low speed, in a single core cpu, and the overhead of windows 7 is eating a lot of memory. About 480MB in windows 7 starter, just for the services, at desktop.

 

[xwb]

It is 4Gb RAM: not an SSD - I installed it. It is actually 5Gb but the last Gb is inaccessible because of the 32 bit addressing. Also upgraded the disk from 160G to 320G. The Compaq 311 netbook will happily take a 4Gb chip and shows 4Gb when you ask for properties. It uses NVDIA graphics and NVDIA network. It is running W7Pro.

Maybe I'll switch back to XP. It is less power hungry and things actually work at a reasonable speed. After all, I don't really use many W7 apps: only sticky notes. Everything else like explorer, mstsc, chrome, eclipse, JDK, visual studio, acrobat, vmware and cmd prompt, I can get on anything from W2K upwards. Eclipse is noticeably slower: takes almost 2 minutes to start.

 

[goombawaho]

It's a horsepower issue or lack thereof, but BBB had a good idea. Have you verified what is running using Process Explorer and then trimmed the fat using MSCONFIG or Autoruns. That gets to the real meat of starting processes, not just open apps.

 

[xwb]

Yes, I did a cleanout recently. Even though Skype complains, I seem to be able to do video comms OK. The picture is a bit choppy but voice is OK. Doesn't seem to lose anything: just that Skype is moaning that the machine is under powered. Most of the time we operate on voice only.

 

[eyec]

i would look at connection speed as a possible problem (choppy video comms) Skype does not play nice with slow connections

 

[xwb]

I think the connection speed is OK. I'm running through a 1Gb USB to ethernet (the internal one only operates at 10Mb - slower than wireless!). Absolutely amazing on file transfers.

Broadband speed is appx 14Mb. Some of the people I'm talking to are only on 1Mb broadband so the broadband speed is not a problem. Maybe it is choppy because they're going through a VPN on the 1Mb broadband. May not be my side: could be the other side.

 

[rclarke250]

Nice, nvidia chipset, with the ion graphics. Skype doesn't give a lot of help either, says it needs 1 Ghz, cpu, and 256 MB ram, so easily meets the specs. And as for the message you are getting, it just says to stop some of the programs running, so not a big help. Could be related to a vpn.

 

[linney]

This indicates that you can show your primary clock (your time) plus two additional clocks, which equals 3 clocks total. Any more clocks require third party software or Gadgets.

How To Add Additional Clocks to Windows 7 Taskbar

http://www.vikitech.com/4285/add-clocks-in-windows-7