Would you like to have a program that let's you monitor your hard disks activity by displaying leds on the tray area that flash whenever Windows is reading/writing?

I would!
I recently bought a Compaq Evo N180 and I was shocked to find that it doesn't have an HDD led!!!

How many times you have to bend over to look at your computer's case and see if Windows is frozen or just accessing your hard disk? Is your laptop missing the HDD led too?

So... would you like to have such utility?

Yes, I like the idea. It's a good idea also for who, as me, have multiple hard disks on multiple buses (SCSI and IDE). The LED on the case could be linked only to one of the two buses, so the utility should work for SCSI and IDE bus displayng two different leds.

Actually the program has the ability to:

- Display a different icon for each selected drive (only non-removable drives are supported though).

- And also you can set it up to use the Keyboard's ScrollLock led to flash based on the activity of all the selected drives

...it's pretty cool...

Does the ability to display a light for each drive refer only to physical drives, or to partitions.  The contol freak part of me would love a light for each partition.

Very good. I´m using 5 Harddrives, IDE and IDE on RAID-Card. Many Times I was unhappy about no LED´s of my HDD-Activity. Also I built in my computer into my office-closet (noise development decreases).
So to see LED´s on monitor would be a great relief.

By  Ralph
(Germany)

Pai,

Right now the program is setup to display a led for each logical non-removable drive which means that you can monitor partitions.

One of my machines uses a 5GB partition for temp storage and swap file and the program let's me monitor the access to this partition which has the drive letter Z assigned to it.

cool

If I have the time I will be releasing it tomorrow... so be sure to check the web site for the download link.

And now that I've got your attention... let me ask... who much would you pay for such utiliy?

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Before you answer, here's a list of its main features:

- Monitor any partition from non-removable media
- Display tray icons with read/write leds
- Display performance information
- Support for OSD (on screen display)
- OSD is semi-transparent and can be placed anywhere on the screen
- The OSD also supports x10 zooming so you can set the size of the OSD to what better fits your needs
- Support for using the ScrollLock key to display the activity of all selected media
- As always free upgrades for life

oh! and I forgot to mention that you can even monitor drives from any computer on your network!!!

I think this could be a really useful tool.

I don't know how you'd go about pricing it though.  With DMB say, you can look at your competitors, compare features and draft a price that way.

With something like this - it's difficult.  I've not seen any other program that does what you say this one will so I think you should do this:

Issue it free to begin with.
Count the number of downloads
Month later, charge $20
Count the number of downloads/registrations
Month later, charge $30
and keep going until you find the downloads/registrations have stopped!  The market will tell you what the price will be.

Although actually, that might just *iss everyone off.  Especially if you lower the price.  I HATE that.

Maybe you could take into account your development time.  I.e. if it was really complicated then charge more.

For me, the software would be a funky power toy - not something I really need.  But for others, I think it would be worth a lot more.

What do I know anyway!!!!

G

I looked to your other products.
I don't know either how big the programming expenditure is or was. I don't know any comparable Tool.
Maybe US$ 12 like your "KeyLaunch"?
Maybe an appealing price provides also big spread. In any case, this Tool then must be applied strongly.

Is a translation planned into other languages?

By Ralph
Germany  

I can't charge for the time spent developing it... it just took me 8 hours

I usually charge based on the "possible" support requests that the program is going to generate.

For example, KeyLaunch hardly generates any support at all.
It's a very simple and easy to use utility so users don't have problems nor questions about it.

SoftLeds (this is the name I chose for it) will be very similar: easy to use yet very effective. So I guess I will go with something like US$10.00

After all, "astalavista" will feature a crack in less than a week regardless of its cost  ???

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There's another product that does the same as SoftLeds and its called HDDLeds. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Windows XP and support for monitoring network drives is provided by purchasing a second product.

Although HDDLeds works a lot better than SoftLeds it tends to make Windows a bit unstable since it gets hooked into the operating system's low level disk access functions... scary!

SoftLeds uses another method to monitor disk activity and if the program crashes... well... it simply crashes and it wont bring your system down with it.

Would you like to have a program that lets you monitor your hard disks activity by displaying leds on the tray area that flash whenever Windows is reading/writing?

I would!
I recently bought a Compaq Evo N180 and I was shocked to find that it doesn't have an HDD led!!!

How many times you have to bend over to look at your computer's case and see if Windows is frozen or just accessing your hard disk? Is your laptop missing the HDD led too?

SoftLeds is a small utility to let you monitor the read/write activity on any hard disk on your local machine or a remote machine accessible on your network.

- Monitor any partition from non-removable media
- Display tray icons with read/write leds
- Display performance information
- Support for OSD (on screen display)
- OSD is semi-transparent and can be placed anywhere on the screen
- The OSD also supports x10 zooming so you can set the size of the OSD to what better fits your needs
- Support for using the ScrollLock key to display the activity of all selected media
- Monitor drives from any computer on your network

---------

And who wants to give it a try?

Here's a link to download a version I consider quite stable:
http://software.xfx.net/ftp/slsetup.exe

IMPORTANT
SoftLeds is designed to run under Windows XP only!
It may work under 2000 but I don't recommend you trying it.
Not that it will damage anything but it will probably fail to run properly.

IMPORTANT
If you're running KeyLaunch you will need to change the default HotKey (ScrollLock) to something else (the Pause/Break for example).

This is in case you decide to use the ScrollLock led of your keyboard to monitor the HDD activity.

IMPORTANT
Monitoring disks on remote machines requires that the remote machine runs Windows XP.
Under some circumstance it may work with machines running Windows 2000 but it's not guaranteed that it will work.

???
Harm, I use Win2000. Also something is planned there?
The installation breaks off since it is no WinXP.

By  Ralph (Germany)

There's an issue with W2K that I haven't been able to solve... but I'm working on it.

Keep checking as I will re-post the setup (soon) so it can be installed on W2K.

Here's a list of some recently discovered incompatibilitied when using the ScrollLock led to monitor the HDD activity:

1) Microsoft Excel:
Excel uses the ScrollLock key to keep the selected cell selected even if you scroll up/down the sheet.

If you pageup/pagedown while SoftLeds is flashing the ScrollLock led you'll notice some jerkiness. This is because Excell thinks that you're "playing" with your ScrollLock key.

2) Microsoft Mouse Driver:
If you press your middle/wheel button to scroll up/down the driver will think you've pressed the button again when SoftLeds flashes the ScrollLock led... very annoying.

3) Windows Sleep function
Windows may wake up if SoftLeds flases the ScrollLock led because Windows will think that you have pressed a key on your keyboard.

I am running XP Professional, and when I have tried to install 2 times, it locks up at "Registering Fonts" both times.  The first time, it finally did move on a bit but then crashed, and the second time it's just sat there lifeless...  I can't even cancel it, have to ctrl-alt-del to shut it down.

jkane001,

Try closing Outlook before installing SoftLeds.

xfx,

I'm liking Nice folders and softLEDS, but I'm having the same "stuck on registering fonts" issue on both, even with Outlook closed, I'm going to try a few more things, but it seems to be installer related, any additional tips?

TIA!

Diane

Diane,

Restart Windows and as soon Windows boots, without starting any other application, launch the setup.

Xavier-

this is a most useful little program!

more than a few years ago (when I noticed that the hard drives were no longer providing a two-pin LED connector on the circuit board side of the drive), I wrote to Adaptec, Seagate, etc. about the feasibility of such a utility that could show red(write) and green(read) indicators in a little bar that could be moved around the Windows Desktop, and the consensus reply was that it wasn't practical, due to CPU limitations ... perhaps, now that most users have GOBS of horsepower, your excellent utility can be made a reality

thanks for your efforts, and I'll be checking in on the site for a download availability date

best wishes for continued success,
InterNot

xfx,

I solved it by just starting in safe mode,

I was guessing activesync might be hanging it too, it worked just fine.

thanks!

activesync?

Is that the Palm synch utility?

Activesynch is Microsoft's conduit to the pocket PC machines, it's a lot more invasive than Palm ever was,

I've had other instances of it not releasing the hold on Outlook DLLs

thanks for all your help so far

I see...

So... I'm almost sure that even if you don't have Outlook running, Activesynch may keep some instance of it "open somewhere".

I have reported (once more) this problem with Outlook to the company that makes the installer we use... hopefully they will (sooner or later) find a solution.

well, the idea behing softleds sounded great, so i tried it.  from what i saw, it is an abomination in its current form--absolutely horrible.

all it did on my machine was devour CPU time, to the tune of a constant 75-90% draw.  options had no explanations.  no tooltips.  no help file.  no readme.

even clicking around the configuration form was a chore.  for some reason, it would take the application several seconds to actually respond to my input.  this gives "aggravating" a whole new meaning.

but the worst thing about this coding experiment gone wrong is that it simply doesn't work right.  i have six physical hard drives, and ten partitions, and not ONCE did i see a green or red "led" light up.

yeah, i'm running winxp.

whatever.  i'll be keeping my ten greenbacks.  better luck next time.

You should have expected the "no help, tooltips or explanations"... its an alpha release!

-------

Now... if SoftLeds was so slow and you never got it working it is because the counters where not able to initialize and where generating timeouts.

Where you running it as the Administrator?

If you were try this:
- Click on START->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Performance
- Click on the [+] button on the toolbar
- From the "Performance object" select "LogicalDisk"
- From the "Select counters from list" select "Avg. Disk Bytes/Read"
- From the "Select Instances from list" select one of your partitions.
- Click on the Add button
- Click the Close button

Is the counter reporting your disk activity?

hi, i've downloaded softled but when i want to start the program it says comdlg32.ocx is missing or invalid.
i have the newest VB6 runtimes installed (if that has something to do with it) and downloaded a few different comdlg32.ocx's, but nothing helps. i'm using Windows XP Pro build 2600 (dutch version). Can you help me?

I have seen this problem before and its usually related to security settings.

Are you installing/running SoftLeds while logged in as the Administrator?

yes i am

How about antivirus software?

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indigo, go to your \system32\ folder and locate the comdlg32.ocx file. Then right click on it and select Properties.
And from the Properties dialog select the "Version" tab.

Please post back the reported version number.

my comdlg32.ocx version is 6.0.2600.0

i have found a solution. i just went to this site: http://lettermandownloads.tripod.com/

and i downloaded the OCX file and registered it.

but now Softleds says:

SoftLeds is unable to create a counter for \\computer\c: (no label)

and i see no leds flashing or something. what about this?

my filesystem is ntfs so it could be some security settings as you have mentioned before. and i tried what you said to someone else, about the performance manager in administrative tools and my pc can display the needed values.

if i fill " \\computer\c$ " in at the pulldown menu/textbox after the word "computer" in Softleds, then my pc displays the leds that should be flashing in my tray without any error message. but they arent doing anything.

but when i hold scroll lock, it will flash like my HDD led. when i release it, it stops.

indigo,

Please download SoftLeds again from this address:
ftp://xfx.dynu.com/slsetup.exe

And reinstall it.

This version should provide more information in case it cannot create a counter.

ít aint still working.

when i select a drive to monitor it says:


Softleds was unable to create a counter for \\computer\C: (No Label)

Error -1073738824: Automation error

An "Automation Error" means that the object that the program tried to access/use generated an error.

This means that for some reason the SystemMonitor component it not allowing SoftLeds to access it.

Perhaps the problem is related to the way SoftLeds generates the counter which is based on the computer name.

Can you check that your computer name is correct?
Have you tried using the loopback: "\\127.0.0.1" instead of the actual machine name?

yes my computername is correct and the loopback generates the same error message.

indigo,

is there any chance that we could try a "remote desktop" connection?

no i disabled remote desktop and i have a 56k modem so i can't be online everytime and i don't think it works fast enough

maybe it's usefull to say that Hard Disk Led (another HD monitoring program) works on my pc. so my pc is able to create a 'virtual' led.

you can find it here: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bohdan/nthdled.htm

but watch out; if you install it in winXP, your virtual memory will be disabled. when you uninstall the program and reboot, the VM will be back.

I created SoftLeds because when I tried to use HardDisk Led on my Windows XP laptop it crashed badly and only a CD repair brought back my OS.

HardDisk Led uses a very different approach: it creates a hook directly to the low level disk access routines. This is dangerous because if HardDisk Led crashes or missbehaves your hard disk data will become corrupted.

SoftLeds simply uses resources provided by the operating system itself.

-------

I have been doing some research and I cannot find anything that could prevent SoftLeds from properly creating a counter.

But... here's something that "could" help me troubleshoot this issue:

Go to START->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Performance

Click on the [+] icon to create a new counter
Form the Performance Object list select Logical Disk
From the available counters select "Avg Disk Bytes/Read"
From the available instances select "C"
Click on the Add button
Click on the Close button

Now right click the graphic and select Properties
Click on the "Data" tab

Take a screenshot of the Data tab and post it here

okay here it is. just like i said before; my WinXP version is dutch, but i think this screenshot shows enough info without translating it. the selected line is the line you probably need.

Damn! The counters are localizable!!!

That is the problem! SoftLeds is trying to create a counter in English and Windows (your Windows) is rejecting it.

Let me give this some thought and I'll let you know if I can come up with some solution.

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I want you to know that if I can solve this issue I will give you a free serial number so you can install SoftLeds when it’s released.

hey thanks

just let me know if you need some more info about my 'different' windows, you know what i mean.

Actually I will need two favors from you:

First of all download this file and unzip it.

1) Run the lid.exe program and post back the returned ID
2) On the ZIP file you will find a .txt file
Please translate each line in Dutch BUT to make sure you are using the correct words verify that the correct spelling on the "Counters Browser" dialog (the "Gegevens" tab from your previous screenshot)

okay, the LID program returned:   Locale ID: 31

and here's the translation:

Logische schijf
Fysieke schijf
Gemiddeld aantal gelezen bytes
Gemiddeld aantal geschreven bytes
Schijfleesbewerkingen in bytes per seconde
Schijfschrijfbewerkingen in bytes per seconde

Its ready!

Please re-download SoftLeds and let me know how it goes.

NOTE: When installing it select DEMO version.
Don't worry, if it works, I will send you a serial number so you can install the FULL version.

okay it works fine now

GREAT!
Thanks for all your help.

Now, send an email to support@xfx.net and ask for your serial number.