HDS shuts down process and all disk engines when I close GUI

[alan-0000]

I normally have 3 off icons in the notification tray, one for each Disk.
I can double click an icon and the GUI is launched.

I can click on the top right corner of the GUI and it close the GUI and the 3 icons persist and the HDS process still runs,
Alternatively I can right click on the new Icon that appears on the Task Bar whilst the GUI is present,
and if I choose the menu option "Close Window" the GUI window closes as expected,
BUT ALSO the 3 off notification icons immediately vanish and the HDSentinel.exe *32 is immediately terminated.
I consider this unfortunate if not surprising

I thought I saw this effect on version 4.00.00 PRO just before I updated with Beta 4.00.17 PRO.
I have now tested on 4.00.17 PRO and found this "feature" is totally repeatable every time.

I am using 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate + SP1.
I doubt the relevance but just in case, I have 8 GB RAM and a 56 GB SSD, OCZ VERTEX2

Regards
Alan

[hdsentinel]

Thanks for your message and excuse me for the issue.
However, I must tell this is not a bug - at least not in Hard Disk Sentinel.

It is completely normal that if you select "Close window", Windows _completely_ closes the corresponding application, not only hides the window. This is 100% same as if you'd use File -> Exit or right click on the tray icon and select Exit from that popup menu: then the software is closed completely.

This is exactly why you see that the software is closed correctly with all of its elements (eg. tray icon) and that's why the HDSentinel.exe is removed from the list of running software in task manager.

However, this is not related to Hard Disk Sentinel, but a Windows behavior: if you select "Close window" on notepad, calculator, wordpad, etc.... they work exactly the same: they are closed immediately (and removed from the list of running programs).

If you want to hide the main window and keep the tray icons (to let Hard Disk Sentinel run in the background), you may simply use the close (X) or the "minimize" buttons in the upper right corner of the main window.

Personally I'd recommend Microsoft to call this Windows menu item as "Close application" or "Close software" or something similar

[alan-0000]

I am always ready to accept that a bug is the fault of Windows - it has caused me so much grief in the past

I normally have just the 3 icons in the tray,
and the GUI only pops up when I hit my shortcut for a text report.
I therefore think of the GUI and its task bar icon as being an entity that is separate and independent of the tray icons and the protective monitoring HDS engines,
and it was a shock to see that simply closing the GUI via the Task Bar would also stop protective monitoring.

I was surprised by this effect.
Other users/server administrators might configure their systems so that tray icons are NOT shown when the Discs are good, but only when the Discs go bad and emails are sent.
These users would not be surprised by an absence of tray icons,
BUT they would go ballistic if their Discs failed with no warning because the HDS engines had stopped because the GUI was closed

It is a problem with Windows, but you might get flak as a result.

Might I suggest that you launch a separate HDS process for the GUI.

N.B.
I use 64 bit BestSync v 7.0.??? and this has a different way of working when the task bar icon is closed.
When I launch it the GUI appears together with a Task Bar icon,
and Task manager shows it as an application and as a process using 5612 K.
When I right click the Task Bar icon and select "Close Window" the process row does not flinch ( it stayed at 5612 K ),
BUT the GUI closed and its icon appeared in the tray, and of course it vanished from the Application Tab of Task Manager.
N.B. Please note that clicking the top right corner of the BestSync GUI will identically close the GUI and the Tas Bar icon and display the Tray icon.

I have not felt the need to get the latest update to BestSync but I expect you will observe similar results with the latest version from
http://www.risefly.com/fsedwld.htm

Regards
Alan

[hdsentinel]

Thanks for your message and thoughts.

As you may see, Hard Disk Sentinel has both the GUI and its main working engine running together.
So a such "Close window" function of Windows (which is really "Close application" as you can see for notepad, calculator, winword, etc....) which closes the software, closes Hard Disk Sentinel also.

Hard Disk Sentinel has a different way to start: it can work as a NT Service. In this mode, it runs in the background, processes disk information, issues alerts, performs automatic backup, offers status information from a web browser, etc... (these are all configurable options).
In corporate environments this is the preferred option.
And in the new version (and in the latest betas) you may find a "Hard Disk Sentinel Tray" shortcut which is exactly designed to show tray icons in this situation: so then the tray icon(s) are displayed as configured and the "NT service" is working independently in the background.

So while other tools may have some kind of fixed behaviour (which may or may not be correct for all systems), only Hard Disk Sentinel offers the flexibility to choose the preferred method to use best on any systems.

[alan-0000]

Windows did not allow the current standard to be used as a service and also launch a GUI.

Will the latest Beta version run as a service and still respond to a /TXTREPORT argument ?

Regards
Alan

[hdsentinel]

Excuse me for the confusion, it is completely different design. There is no separate GUI.

You can decide to run it as application OR as a service, you can switch any time on Configuration -> Integration.
This is possible in any version (not only the latest beta).
So if running as a service, you can't start it (again) as it would cause conflict in the database of hard disks.
So no, if running as a service, the /TXTREPORT argument may not work.

Personally instead of /TXTREPORT I'd more recommend using Configuration -> Advanced options -> Generate and update XML file option because as I know, you prefer to process the information differently.
This automatically saves all information to XML file (even if the software is running as application or service) as it is designed exactly to allow interaction of other tools which can import and process this file in any ways.

[alan-0000]

Thanks

I will continue to use as an application, but remember to abstain from"Close window"

Regards
Alan

[hdsentinel]

Thanks!

I'm also checking if it's possible to close the main window only if you'd use "Close window" instead of closing the software.

Have a nice day,

Janos

[alan-0000]

Thanks

Regards
Alan

[nimbystripes]

I will definitely keep this in mind!