Scheduler questions

I'm finally getting around to cleaning up my scheduler, and I note that
at the top of the Task tab for each entry it seems to show the name of
the file that corresponds to the task.

For example, D:\Windows\Tasks\RadioMaximus

But when I go to Windows Explorer and look in D:\Windows\Tasks, it shows
no files. Even though there are 20 entries in the Scheduler, all with
similar names. Why do I find no files in the directory? (I do know
that the RadioMaximus items were running as scheduled.**)


7 of the 20 entries are for Google Update, even though I have only one
Google Program, Google Earth, which has crashed every time I've tried to
us it in the last couple years. I might as well disable all 7
updates, right?

One of the google updates had been running since 1:14PM two days ago,
about 44 hours. When I looked in the Task Manager, the process seemed
to have no time devoted to it, in the time I watched. I stopped the
task. Not that important, but what do you think was going on that
took 44 hours and wasn't done?

Thanks.


**RadioMaximus review: RM is not perfect, and I don't think he is
working on it anymore (though maybe he would if he got specific requests
regarding problems****) but it's one of the best programs for playing
web radio. It has a very large included list of stations, world-wide and
with many many in the US etc. plus you can enter your own if you can
determine the url for the sound you want.*** It also records. It might
be the only one that, in the paid version ($22??) will record on a
pre-determined schedule, without the user being there. RadioMaximus
starts itself in that case, but I needed the scheduler entry to start
the computer. I had to put that in myself. The program didn't do it.
But it all works. I record Diane Rehm's week in review on Friday
morning, Car Talk on Saturday Morning, and the Big Broadcast on Sunday
night. Of course the effect of this is that I don't try quite as hard
to listen to them live, and I almost never get around to playing the
recording, even though it works well. But that's a psychological
problem, not a computer problem.

***Determining the url isn't necessarily that easy. In the only case I
tried to do it, I was able to to play a web radio station from a link
originating on the station's own home page, but inserting that in
RadioMaximus (RM) did not work I think RM also had a pre-entered entry
for the station, but when I had used that, it played music instead of
news/talk like the station is famous for. I forget the details. I
could have emailed the station to find out the value I needed, and that
might have worked, but I played the station from its webpage for a
while and gradually lost interest.

**** The volume control on my mulit-media keyboard works, and the mute
works, and mute mutes both the computer and the program, but somehow if
I wait longer than about 20 minutes, pressing mute to UNmute unmutes the
computer but mutes the program!! So I have to go to the program window
and unmute it separately. I think that's my biggest complaint. It
would be nice if one could change stations from the keyboard by pressing
Next Track.

On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 09:13:14 -0400, micky
wrote:

Regarding task scheduler

7 of the 20 entries are for Google Update, even though I have only one
Google Program, Google Earth, which has crashed every time I've tried to
us it in the last couple years. I might as well disable all 7
updates, right?

One of the google updates had been running since 1:14PM two days ago,
about 44 hours. When I looked in the Task Manager, the process seemed
to have no time devoted to it, in the time I watched. I stopped the
task. Not that important, but what do you think was going on that
took 44 hours and wasn't done?

I also found msfeedssync.exe sync, that is scheduled to run every 5
minutes for 17 hours every day, and every 5 minutes for 24 hours each
day. Both of them!!! What kind of craziness is that?

I see that it updates my RSS feeds. I have only one that I don't see on
FireFox anymore. It updated news stories but they were all from one
source, and I looked at it maybe twice a year. I surely don't need
this.


OT My niece has a Mac, 4 years old, and she thinks it's slow. CPUs
havent' gotten much faster in the last 4 years, have they? Speed seems
to have stagnated, for good reason, I'm sure. Does Mac get these
scans and updates installed when people aren't looking, and could that
be what's making her computer slow? I'm hoping now that I'm rid of them
on mine it will speed up.

In article , NONONOmisc07
@bigfoot.com, micky says...

I'm finally getting around to cleaning up my scheduler, and I note that
at the top of the Task tab for each entry it seems to show the name of
the file that corresponds to the task.

For example, D:\Windows\Tasks\RadioMaximus

But when I go to Windows Explorer and look in D:\Windows\Tasks, it shows
no files. Even though there are 20 entries in the Scheduler, all with
similar names. Why do I find no files in the directory? (I do know
that the RadioMaximus items were running as scheduled.**)


7 of the 20 entries are for Google Update, even though I have only one
Google Program, Google Earth, which has crashed every time I've tried to
us it in the last couple years. I might as well disable all 7
updates, right?
snip

Three wee utils I think you should run then...
1. Install Unchecky from www.unchecky.com (that'll help when you install
# 2 ...
2. Install CrapCleaner (ccleaner), free version, from www.piriform.com
(The ccleaner folk, pirifom, do third-party vendor deals, and will try
and install Google Chrome if you do *not* uncheck the checkboxes - but
they're allready unchecked if you've installed Unchecky! )
3. Install ShouldIRemoveIt, from Reason Software at
www.shouldiremoveit.com

Let it run on completion, or run it - and seriously consider anything
it's marked in red - but go right through the list to the bottom. (You
can click on a program to open it a bit and then click "What is it" -
should you need more info on that particular program).

Run ccleaner up. In the Options, Monitoring - I uncheck "enable system
monitoring" and "enable active monitoring" (I prefer to run ccleaner
'manually').
In the Tools, Startup, carefully check through that list. You can quite
safely disable, rather then delete, an entry - so if you break anthing
upon reboot, you can re-enable the item that you shouldn't have
disabled. Make sure you go through the other tabs at the top too (which
includes scheduled tasks).
And I'd run ccleaner (Cleaner tab at left) when your done, and before
you reboot.

Reboot.

Hopefully you PC is running a fair bit better now (certainly boot time
should be reduced if you've disabled a few startup items) - and you've
killed off that ****** you're talking about

And yes, you can safely disable or delete the Google update tasks - the
next time you run any Google software, it'll probably re-enable *one*
instance.

--
Duncan.