Cache My Work: reopen your Apps after reboot

What Does CacheMyWork Do?

• CacheMyWork enables you to instruct Windows to re-launch specific applications the next time you login
• CacheMyWork identifies all the applications that (a) the user has launched and (b) are visible on the Taskbar
• By default, CacheMyWork will also simplify the list by removing those applications that are auto-started by Windows on behalf of the user (e.g. instant messaging applications)

How To Use CacheMyWork

• Just launch CacheMyWork.exe
• Select each of the applications you want launched again after you next logon
• Click the Save button.

Optional Settings

• Select any "active" applications that you wish to "hide" from the main list (i.e. the list you see when you first launch CacheMyWork)
• Select any previously "hidden" applications that you wish to display in the main list
• Each of these choices will take effect as soon you click OK

• Allows you to enable or disable the Windows setting "Restore previous Explorer windows at next logon"
• This Windows setting will cause each Explorer Window (e.g. drive, folder, share) to be opened again to the same location the next time you login
• This Windows setting will be persistent - i.e. it won't require you to run CacheMyWork before each reboot (i.e. it isn't a CacheMyWork feature, but simply something from Windows that I'm exposing)
• more information about this Windows setting is documented here 

Information on Specific Application Caching Issues

• csrss
• dwm
• Explorer
• Idle
• IEXPLORE
• svchost
• System
• winlogon

Caching/Reboot-friendly applications

• Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/)
  • free, open source "replacement" for Notepad
  • will automatically remember and re-open any files that were open when the app last closed or crashed
• Firefox (with the Session Manager add-on)
• • saves multiple open tabs and windows, whether you gracefully close Firefox or it crashes.
  • Can even save a history of closed windows until you close Firefox (or even across launches!).
• Internet Explorer 7+
• Avant Browser (http://www.avantbrowser.com/) or Maxthon Browser (http://www.maxthon.com/)
  • free, closed-source "replacements" (Trident wrappers, actually) for Internet Explorer.
  • These browser enhancements uses the Internet Explorer "engine" (so you get the same page layout and compatibility with IE-friendly sites), but replace the user interface with new menus, right-click options, tabbing, caching of open tabs, and a whole lot more.

Limitations of CacheMyWork

• CacheMyWork is only able to cache your applications, not their documents
  • It's not able to save and automatically re-open the open documents for most applications (except where those applications happen to store the document's filename and path on the process's command line, such as with Notepad)
  • In fact, based on my research, I'm beginning to believe that the only way to accomplish this is to install application-specific add-ins that scrape the inner "state" of the app's documents and caches that as well.  I believe that's a hopeless pursuit.
• CacheMyWork is only able to cache the first instance of each application that it finds.
  • That is, if there are two or more of any one application running at once (e.g. when Notepad is launched twice), CacheMyWork isn't able to cache the second instance of that application.
  • Based on the years of experience using CacheMyWork, I've yet to find an occasion where two instances of the same application (a) are useful enough to bother re-opening both, and (b) have a distinct process command line that *can* be cached.