A Windows XP help forum. PCbanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » PCbanter forum » Microsoft Windows 7 » Windows 7 Forum
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Why is the Windows Experience Index re-computed every week?



 
 
Thread Tools Rate Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old December 16th 18, 08:38 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Why is the Windows Experience Index re-computed every week?

I was sitting at my computer reading some web articles when suddenly the
desktop theme changed from Aero to Basic. I hadn't done anything. I
only have one batch file that disables the Desktop Composition Service
(for Stream games that incorrectly bitch too late that they've run out
of GUI resources). I wasn't running that batch file.

The anomaly happened exactly at 1 AM and corrected itself in about a
minute. I found in Event Viewer two events:

- A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process
(Windows System Assessment Tool).
- The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was
disabled by a running application.

The Windows System Assessment Tool is found under Control Panel -
Performance Information and Tools. This is where run it to get
Microsoft's "Windows Experience Index (WEI)" performance score for your
computer (mine is 7.2). I didn't run this tool, so what did? I noticed
the fans changed speed because there was a lot going on at the time,
like a lot of disk activity and a video flicker when the screen went
black for a couple seconds. When the desktop theme switched, I
recognized the effect because I've done this in a batch file to keep a
game from issuing bogus bitching.

There are a lot of scheduled events in Task Scheduler, far more than
I've defined. Those are there by default or added when you install
programs, plus some programs use Task Scheduler instead of running their
own scheduler process. Alas, Task Scheduler does not let you filter its
scheduled events by selecting a time range for when the scheduled events
are planned to run. During the time WinSAT was running, I could've use
Display Running Tasks in Task Scheduler but I didn't discover the cause
of the desktop theme switch until the Aero theme had been restored.

I tried searching C:\Windows\System32\Tasks for the "winsat.exe" string
using FileLocator Lite using "*" for all filenames and "winsat" for the
string to look inside the files. It found:

C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\Mainte nance\WinSAT

I went back into Task Scheduler and navigated down to:

Task Scheduler (local)
\__ Task Scheduler Library
\__ Microsoft
\__ Windows
\__ Maintenance

and sure enough there was a WinSAT scheduled event that runs at 1 AM
every Sunday. What the ****! Why does Microsoft want to know out
computer's SAT score? I don't know that it was actually transmitted out
of my PC but why run it if not to report the value that required running
the intensive test? It's some telemetry tracking by Microsoft but I
don't see the point of collecting such a crappy score.

While I can see the scheduled event and see its trigger (1 AM every
Sunday), I cannot look under the Actions tab to see the command that it
runs. Instead it shows as "Custom Handler" and the Edit button won't
let me peek inside. It is scheduled to run 10 minutes after the
computer goes idle. I was spending some time reading an article, so
that became the idle time for this scheduled event to run. I happened
to be there to see it run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...ssessment_Tool

That mentions running WinSAT at 1 AM every Sunday but not what the hell
it needs to run at all. Why re-compute this score every week? If it is
not uploaded for telemetry purposes, why waste the CPU/GPU cycles to run
it?

I have, for now, disabled this scheduled event in Task Manager (although
deleting its trigger event would've also worked). I just don't
understand why the WEI score gets re-computed every week. Many users
don't even know about this tool. Those that do only run it after a
major change, like they put in a new and faster CPU, more or faster
memory, a new video card, or migrated the OS (cloned it) or moved the
HDD/SDD to a different mobo.
Ads
  #2  
Old December 16th 18, 10:16 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Why is the Windows Experience Index re-computed every week?

VanguardLH wrote:
I was sitting at my computer reading some web articles when suddenly the
desktop theme changed from Aero to Basic. I hadn't done anything. I
only have one batch file that disables the Desktop Composition Service
(for Stream games that incorrectly bitch too late that they've run out
of GUI resources). I wasn't running that batch file.

The anomaly happened exactly at 1 AM and corrected itself in about a
minute. I found in Event Viewer two events:

- A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process
(Windows System Assessment Tool).
- The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was
disabled by a running application.

The Windows System Assessment Tool is found under Control Panel -
Performance Information and Tools. This is where run it to get
Microsoft's "Windows Experience Index (WEI)" performance score for your
computer (mine is 7.2). I didn't run this tool, so what did? I noticed
the fans changed speed because there was a lot going on at the time,
like a lot of disk activity and a video flicker when the screen went
black for a couple seconds. When the desktop theme switched, I
recognized the effect because I've done this in a batch file to keep a
game from issuing bogus bitching.

There are a lot of scheduled events in Task Scheduler, far more than
I've defined. Those are there by default or added when you install
programs, plus some programs use Task Scheduler instead of running their
own scheduler process. Alas, Task Scheduler does not let you filter its
scheduled events by selecting a time range for when the scheduled events
are planned to run. During the time WinSAT was running, I could've use
Display Running Tasks in Task Scheduler but I didn't discover the cause
of the desktop theme switch until the Aero theme had been restored.

I tried searching C:\Windows\System32\Tasks for the "winsat.exe" string
using FileLocator Lite using "*" for all filenames and "winsat" for the
string to look inside the files. It found:

C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\Mainte nance\WinSAT

I went back into Task Scheduler and navigated down to:

Task Scheduler (local)
\__ Task Scheduler Library
\__ Microsoft
\__ Windows
\__ Maintenance

and sure enough there was a WinSAT scheduled event that runs at 1 AM
every Sunday. What the ****! Why does Microsoft want to know out
computer's SAT score? I don't know that it was actually transmitted out
of my PC but why run it if not to report the value that required running
the intensive test? It's some telemetry tracking by Microsoft but I
don't see the point of collecting such a crappy score.

While I can see the scheduled event and see its trigger (1 AM every
Sunday), I cannot look under the Actions tab to see the command that it
runs. Instead it shows as "Custom Handler" and the Edit button won't
let me peek inside. It is scheduled to run 10 minutes after the
computer goes idle. I was spending some time reading an article, so
that became the idle time for this scheduled event to run. I happened
to be there to see it run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...ssessment_Tool

That mentions running WinSAT at 1 AM every Sunday but not what the hell
it needs to run at all. Why re-compute this score every week? If it is
not uploaded for telemetry purposes, why waste the CPU/GPU cycles to run
it?

I have, for now, disabled this scheduled event in Task Manager (although
deleting its trigger event would've also worked). I just don't
understand why the WEI score gets re-computed every week. Many users
don't even know about this tool. Those that do only run it after a
major change, like they put in a new and faster CPU, more or faster
memory, a new video card, or migrated the OS (cloned it) or moved the
HDD/SDD to a different mobo.


The Wikipedia article says that, on Windows 8, the scheduled task runs,
but it checks hardware inventory first. If the inventory is the same
as last week, it doesn't re-compute the scores.

The article doesn't state whether Win7 does the same thing.

That section of the article has no cites either, so no idea
where the information to write that section came from.

It could be, that similar to how DMI/ESCD used to operate, if
the computer cannot properly store the results of an operation,
it causes the operation to be repeated at the next available
opportunity. This is how you can wear out the Flash on a BIOS,
if the DMI/ESCD doesn't parse the CPU type properly (CPU=unknown),
so that DMI runs every time and tries to update it with "unknown".
Which just wears out the BIOS flash where that information
is supposed to be stored.

I would look to see if the test is updating any files
that record such things.

Different societies have a different level of interest in
WinSAT. Some are quite enthusiastic, and will waste good
money getting high scores, just for bragging right. I
haven't heard any such discussions in a newsgroup about
this, for quite some time.

In Windows 10, the theory was, that the Optimize (defragmenter)
was using WinSAT information to tell SSDs apart from regular
rotating hard drives. Again, I can find no authoritative
comments to back up this idea. The differences in the SMART
tables, between storage families, is just as effective an indication
what family a device belongs to. And speaking of that,
I noticed in 1809, the old bug is back, where the Optimize
panel is confusing slow HDDs as SSDs and vice versa. It
offered to defragment my SSD last week, and also changes the
label to indicate it was "a HDD". It wasn't defragmenting because
of COW, it offered to defrag because it thought the thing
was a HDD.

Unhooking WinSAT in Task Scheduler as you have, sounds like
the best medicine.

Paul
  #3  
Old December 16th 18, 01:25 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Stan Brown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,904
Default Why is the Windows Experience Index re-computed every week?

On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 01:38:10 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
I went back into Task Scheduler and navigated down to:

Task Scheduler (local)
\__ Task Scheduler Library
\__ Microsoft
\__ Windows
\__ Maintenance

and sure enough there was a WinSAT scheduled event that runs at 1 AM
every Sunday. What the ****! Why does Microsoft want to know out
computer's SAT score?


Thanks for posting this.

I thought I had useless Windows tasks turned off, but every so often
when I log on (or return from hibernation), the hard drive will be
accessed continuously and the computer unresponsive for several
minutes. I wonder if this was responsible -- it was set to run
weekly, like yours.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg! There are a zillion other
tasks in the "Microsoft Windows" branch, some with reasonable
explanations and others completely obscure. Several do relate to
collecting information and sending it to Microsoft.

One confusing and annoying thing is that a task can show as ready in
the task list, you open the special Properties window to edit it, ad
the "Enable" box is not checked, so it's actually disabled. Not a
very helpful user interface.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...
  #4  
Old December 16th 18, 05:09 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Why is the Windows Experience Index re-computed every week?

Stan Brown wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 01:38:10 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
I went back into Task Scheduler and navigated down to:

Task Scheduler (local)
\__ Task Scheduler Library
\__ Microsoft
\__ Windows
\__ Maintenance

and sure enough there was a WinSAT scheduled event that runs at 1 AM
every Sunday. What the ****! Why does Microsoft want to know out
computer's SAT score?


Thanks for posting this.

I thought I had useless Windows tasks turned off, but every so often
when I log on (or return from hibernation), the hard drive will be
accessed continuously and the computer unresponsive for several
minutes. I wonder if this was responsible -- it was set to run
weekly, like yours.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg! There are a zillion other
tasks in the "Microsoft Windows" branch, some with reasonable
explanations and others completely obscure. Several do relate to
collecting information and sending it to Microsoft.

One confusing and annoying thing is that a task can show as ready in
the task list, you open the special Properties window to edit it, ad
the "Enable" box is not checked, so it's actually disabled. Not a
very helpful user interface.


I'll have to review the Windows events in Task Scheduler. There are
lots of them that are unwanted. For example, I opted out of the
Customer Experience telemetry crap, and yet there is a scheduled event
whose comment is:

Aggregates and uploads Application Telemetry information if opted-in to
the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program.

So it collects the telemetry data and I have to assume that it does not
get sent because I opted out - but why bother to run the scheduled event
to collect the telemetry data at all if it isn't going to be sent? I
thought autochk had to do with running chkdsk on Windows startup if the
dirty bit was set on a drive, but in Task Scheduler there is an AutoChk
event that says it is another part of the Customer Experience crap.

A lot of these events list "Custom Handler" for the trigger or action or
both, so I haven't a clue when they run or what they run. Geez, now I
get to waste time researching each of these to see what I should
disable, like all the Customer Experience telemetry turds. Some of the
categories (folders) are empty, so why create them? DUH!

The problem is having to monitor all of these that I change. Microsoft
could re-enable them or delete and recreate them in an "update".
  #5  
Old December 18th 18, 01:58 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Stan Brown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,904
Default Why is the Windows Experience Index re-computed every week?

On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 10:09:56 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
I'll have to review the Windows events in Task Scheduler. There are
lots of them that are unwanted. For example, I opted out of the
Customer Experience telemetry crap, and yet there is a scheduled event
whose comment is:

Aggregates and uploads Application Telemetry information if opted-in to
the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program.

So it collects the telemetry data and I have to assume that it does not
get sent because I opted out - but why bother to run the scheduled event
to collect the telemetry data at all if it isn't going to be sent?


Yes, that's one of the items I noticed too. Like you, I had opted out
of the CEIP. I guess Microsoft keeps running the task in case we
change our minds, or more likely in case they push a Windows 7 update
that sends that information even if you opt out.

And before someone makes remarks about tinfoil hats -- A recent How-
To Geek points out that Windows 10 does exactly that.

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/window...ivity-history-
to-microsoft-even-if-you-tell-it-not-to/

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off






All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:18 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 PCbanter.
The comments are property of their posters.