System Control 1.3 Update

25 Responses to “System Control 1.3 Update”

1. alik Says:
   June 21st, 2008 at 9:12 pm

   thanks

2. RD Says:
   June 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm

   1) I set System Control to display CPU usage… and at times, I see I have 100.5% performance… WoW

   2) Does moving the data file for System Control foreshadow the same for your other projects, like XMRadioOnline, UnsignedBandWeb, and Date & Time??
   Is this a response to the problems with UAC?
   I note that changing the options for System Control actually works, even with UAC running… however ‘Check for Gadget Updates’ still returns an erroneous error, as nothing else has a problem with my connection.

3. The Staff Says:
   June 23rd, 2008 at 8:37 pm

   RD, Hmm… We’ll look into that. CPU usage should top off at 100%, though that wasn’t one of the functions changed up much with the update.

   Yeah, we are moving our data files for the gadget, partially to see if it helps with the UAC, also to make it easier for people to get at the files if they need them. We’ll take a look at the update function again and see if we missed something that would cause an error.

4. The Staff Says:
   June 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 pm

   RD, we took a quick peek at the functions, CPU should be fixed and we corrected a typo with the update checker, so take a look and please let us know if stuff is still not working.

5. RD Says:
   June 24th, 2008 at 6:52 am

   … you rounded up instead of down. I can now see that I get 101% CPU!! Woohoo!

   And the update thing is tied to the UAC thing… ’cause it works fine when I shut off UAC.
   But… but… but… I don’t wanna shutdown UAC (I like extraneous prompts, not)… and your gadgets are almost great except for that. System Control, Date & Time, XMRadioOnline, UnsignedBandWeb are pretty nifty. I’m going to wait on Blogger Buddy. What’s odd is that I can get to the ‘Options’ for all of them except XMRadioOnline which has that non-display problem I described in the XM minor update blog. Hope you can get past that UAC thing soon. I was looking over a couple other gadgets from elsewhere and they seem pretty static in their gadget directory (no files with mod dates after install), guess they keep most settings in the Settings.ini or registry? Well… Biding my tongue on UAC thing… it’s getting pretty bloody though!

6. The Staff Says:
   June 24th, 2008 at 10:02 am

   RD, interesting. Though when we were checking the code yesterday to correct the function, it’s really a tally of the total proccessing power, so someone with multiple cores might get a slightly higher reading. We’ll keep on it though.

   *Hates the UAC for a multitude of reasons*

   We’re going to go back and do some serious error corrrection in the next week or two with the XM gadget, so hopefuly that gets everything working better soon.

7. RD Says:
   June 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am

   “My CPU is a neural net processor; a learning computer. But Skynet…” uh, mmm… I mean it’s an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (just one, no multi-core .

   Just to note: UAC-related probs with other gadgets… (besides Check for Updates)…

   Date & Time – can’t calendar or view events; can enter them, says ‘added!’, but don’t seem to be saved; (alarms great though)

   UnsignedBandWeb – can’t see channel list (no current channels, or favorites), controls grayed out

   System Control… Just WORKS (except update).
   Will user eventually have option to define their own button(s) in some manner?

   With UAC off… gadgets seem to work as expected, even update checking.

8. The Staff Says:
   June 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am

   RD, try downloading the gadget again. We made a quick change to the update function that will hopefully get the needed UAC permissions to work. Also, we fixed the CPU monitor.

   The odd thing about the UAC is that again, we seem to get different results for different computers. It’s frustrating how variable Vista is on different hardware. Your UAC seems to be extremely restricive in terms of file read / write and XMl loading. Others have no issues with the UAC on and some people only get certain errors.

9. RD Says:
   June 28th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

   I can’t get more than 100% from my Cee-PeeYew no more! Darn!!

   But I don’t have to put up with any updates, with my UAC on… gadget’s still puttin’ on errs when I press that button.

   Everything else works, except… “Click to open data folder” …it doesn’t… anything. But the weblinks work fine.

10. The Staff Says:
    June 28th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    RD, we’re under the impression that the UAC is activly blocking gadget permissions. This isn’t happening with very many people and it’s unlikely that any type of code will bypass the permissions needed for obtaining XML and reading it in the gadget. Same applies for the open gadget folder link, both functins use elements that your UAC seems to be activly blocking. Congratulations, you’re computer is uber-secure.

    Have you run into any other instances where gadgets haven’t pulled data because of the UAC?

11. The Staff Says:
    June 28th, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    RD, what are your Internet Explorer security settings? Those could be affecting the execution of ActiveX objects or permissions, which would explain some functions not working.

12. RD Says:
    June 29th, 2008 at 6:44 am

    In my Internet Options, Security tab, all zones were set to the defaults… the Internet zone was “Medium-high”, ‘Appropriate for most websites’, ‘Prompts before downloading potentially unsafe content’, ‘Unsigned ActiveX controls will not be downloaded’…. and the ‘Enable Protected Mode’ was checked. In Advanced tab, I did -not- have ‘Allow active content to run in files on My Computer’ checked.

    Anyway… I just tried doing a lot of ‘UN’securing. I set all the Internet Options, Security tab, -all- zone levels to the lowest slider settings, then I went into each zone’s Custom Level button and -enabled- everything, turned -off- ‘Enable Protected Mode’ for each zone. Set Privacy tab slider to Low, turned off Pop-up Blocker. In the Advanced tab, I unchecked Disables, and checked Enables. I turned off Windows Firewall, I have Windows Defender off/service stopped. I shutdown all my background processes, e.g. AVG Antivirus, etc. I’m -not- running an extra firewall right now (like Zone Alarm). I closed and uninstalled System Control and exited Sidebar and restarted, re-installed… several times along the way. Check for Gadget Updates’ still erred, ‘Click to open data folder’ still wouldn’t.

    I tried checking gadget folder .js script’s properties to see if they were ‘blocked’, but all looks normal.

    I turned off UAC….
    Voila… all BuildaGadgets, all options worked.

    I really haven’t noticed any other problems anywhere in websites, or gadgets, but I’ve really only otherwise run the stock Vista gadgets… although I’ve downloaded many others of interest… I like quality and utility, -not- quantity of superfluous apps/gadgets. Anyway, I was thinking of loading up several other gadgets in sidebar’s back pages to see if I can find anomalies with others.

    UAC… Uber Allen Control! Well, uber some things anyway.

13. The Staff Says:
    June 29th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

    Huh. Guess the UAC really is annoyingly powerful. That is definitely very odd. But it would explain why our gadgets aren’t working that well for you.

    The big question here is do the Microsoft gadgets have particular permissions for the UAC or do they have them hard coded somewhere in the registry so they get immediate privileges. Hmmm…

14. Hambone Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 5:31 am

    You guys should fix the UAC issues, I am still having them too.

15. The Staff Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 9:59 am

    Hambone, working on it.

16. RD Says:
    July 1st, 2008 at 1:39 am

    Hmmm, is right … I loaded up 40-some gadgets that I’d been collecting, and only found a handful that didn’t get along with UAC (like Blister HDD, and Absolute Futurity’s Speed Test, and the newest version 2 of SayIt! which now has more options to save. The first version of SayIt! does work with UAC, but few options to set.). Found one gadget (NewMail, email checker) that worked worse withOUT UAC.

    There’s a Sidebar Blog on Microsoft that I was glancing through… has a nifty description of how to put your sidebar/gadgets on a USB stick to run elsewhere. Anyway, there aren’t many gadgets interactive enough to have these UAC troubles, it seems… a lot of gadgets are pretty ’static’, just displaying things, etc. Somewhere I was reading about getting error feedback on gadgets.

    The Blister author also suggested elevating sidebar.exe to ‘run as administrator’… that actually helps … buildagadgets work fine if you run sidebar as administrator… I don’t know if that’s ‘abusable’ if you stop trying out new gadgets.

    With Vista Home Premium, my user account -is- in the “administrators” group, but apparently it’s also in “approval mode” so we get dinged by UAC anyway.

    I see some discussion that gadgets are supposed to be able to write to files in the ‘user profile’… one gadget (NewMail) put their data subdirectory in Users\(owner)\Appdata\Roaming. I can set NewMail’s options but it’s not actually returning a new email count even though seemingly connecting to the email server.

    Good luck. As I mentioned previously, I used to be able to run XMOnlineRadio gadget just fine. Then something changed… in Vista.

17. The Staff Says:
    July 1st, 2008 at 2:49 am

    Thanks RD, that really helps us out a ton.

18. Tony Shiu Says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    I can’t seem to get System Control 1.3 installed. I am currently running version 1.2. When I click on Systemcontrol.gadget, it asks to if I want to run the file. Then nothing… Does not show up in my gadgets list. Anyone have any ideas??

19. RD Says:
    July 17th, 2008 at 4:19 am

    Since you asked ‘anyone’…. UNinstall it -all-. Re-download it (may have a corrupted download), and re-install.

20. Ross Snowden Says:
    July 19th, 2008 at 12:45 am

    Everything with System Control seems to work well so far. I *would* like to see an orange coloured button for the sleep/hibernate button – perhaps orange. It should be a least a different colour than the Log Off button (yellow).

    Is there a way to define the sleep/hibernate button to do one or the other? I think for me, it actually hibernates the system (not sleep).

21. The Staff Says:
    July 20th, 2008 at 2:40 am

    Ross, the buttons were modeled after the XP buttons, but we’ll consider orange as a possible color.

    The sleep / hibernate functionality is system variable. We have more details in the support page: http://www.buildagadget.com/Support-Pro-Gadget-SC-WS.php#Topic2

22. Lars Says:
    September 7th, 2008 at 3:47 am

    Hi,
    very nice gadget but what about a translation into german? I would help to translate.

    Greetz, Lars

23. Kevin Says:
    October 10th, 2008 at 8:07 pm

    Hi,
    I have a laptop is there a button to turn off the display or darken the screen when we are away at a meeting or conference?
    Thanks

24. Chris Says:
    November 16th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    Hey guys, Great App, would like to see the ability to re-order the buttons, more for the order I use them.

    Thanks

25. The Staff Says:
    November 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am

    Chris, head to the gadget settings -> Options -> Buttons and you can re-order and disable / enable anything you’d like.