CacheMyWork Forum Rss Feed

New Post: CacheMyWork-1.2 on Wine-1.5

nick2time — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:11:11 GMT

Has anybody tried running CacheMyWork under Wine?

New Post: why not 'default on' all my apps? yes, that'd be 'cache my "Cache My Work."'

808Dave — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:51:18 GMT

Mike,

I went back to your site to see what's new - looks like you did some work & maybe cracked a developer-nut, if my non-dev translation makes any sense, that is. But even if no big changes, I was going to reinstall the old version, I think it is (1.2) - but I can't get either that or the alpha 2.0 to start downloading. Some tube is blocked, I suppose?

Get version 2.0 going and I will invest $8 billion in your startup...

Mahalo,

Dave Sofio

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 8:56 AM, paranoidmike <notifications@codeplex.com> wrote:

From: paranoidmike

Hi Dave, thanks for posting your thoughts and experiences! (and thanks for taking the effort to join Codeplex just to post this info - I'm doubly humbled) What you describe hasn't been my personal usage model, but it's sure compelling and makes total sense now that you mention it. I'll add that to the upcoming release as a high-pri enhancement, and if I'm smart I'll even add a config option to turn off this default for anyone who doesn't like it. But hell, even I'll probably start using this. Can't predict when the next release will come though - I completely rewrote the codebase over the last year or so, to the point where I don't have a way to roll a new fix to the old codebase, *and* I've dug myself a WPF hole that has been murder to dig my way out of. Sorry, but believe me I'm still motivated to get this sucker out at some point.

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New Post: Limitations of CacheMyWork?

tester202 — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:53:10 GMT

In the docs you write:

"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."

Have you considered using "handle" tool http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896655.aspx

or alike? it maps all open files to owner processes. This can address both of the issues in the "Limitations"

New Post: Unhandled exception

gerhardf — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:21:33 GMT

I'm running version 1.2.0.0.

When I run the application, a Microsoft .NET Framework unhandled exception window with the content at the end of the message pops up.The file "C:\WINDOWS\system32\PCCMFLPD.exe" in fact doesn't exist in that location, but it does exist in "C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\PCCMFLPD.EXE". This is also the location where it is referenced in the registry. (This is Windows XP 64-bit.)

Installation seems to have completed normally. The only odd thing is that in the Start menu, there are two entries: one for Cache My Work, another for an icon wi0096-16.ico.

When I click on "Continue" in the exception dialog, I see the application window with an empty client area (no applications listed) and the CacheMyWork splash window. I can close the app window through menu File > Exit, but the splash window stays. Only by killing the process CacheMyWork.exe can I get rid of it.

I know you're working on a new version, but is there anything I can do to make this work?

Thanks,

Gerhard

See the end of this message for details on invoking 
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: C:\WINDOWS\system32\PCCMFLPD.exe
   at System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(String fileName)
   at System.Diagnostics.ProcessModule.get_FileVersionInfo()
   at CacheMyWork.ProcessesLocal.GetProcessDescriptiveName(Process proc)
   at CacheMyWork.Utility.BuildProcessesCollection()
   at CacheMyWork.Utility.BuildListOfUserProcesses()
   at CacheMyWork.MainForm.MainForm_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.EventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3615 (GDR.050727-3600)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
CacheMyWork
    Assembly Version: 1.2.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.2.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/CacheMyWork/CacheMyWork.exe
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
    Assembly Version: 8.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 8.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.VisualBasic/8.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3614 (GDR.050727-3600)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3082 (QFE.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Runtime.Remoting
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Runtime.Remoting/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Runtime.Remoting.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Management
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Management/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Management.dll
----------------------------------------

New Post: why not 'default on' all my apps? yes, that'd be 'cache my "Cache My Work."'

808Dave — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:59:20 GMT

Hi Mike,

Glad to know 'cache' isn't a ghost ship - was beginning to wonder. It's proven helpful on several occasions. I know nothing about coding anymore (foggy memories of writing stuff in Pascal...and Hypercard...about 1873, I think it was...and though they probably still teach Fortran at the engineering school I graduated from, I never learned any, just to buck the system) so I definitely appreciate what developers like you do these days... though I don't know any particulars (WPF?)

To me, your app is more necessary than any "session restore" utility for a mere browser (and THOSE are something I was seeking long before they came on the scene). People love "system restore" (at least, when it works, they do) so I don't know why there wouldn't already have been a bunch of software efforts released to do just what 'cache' does. Anyone who keeps an "always on" setup like I do would want this.

Now let me see...did I check off those boxes yet this time?

Mahalo,

Dave

New Post: why not 'default on' all my apps? yes, that'd be 'cache my "Cache My Work."'

paranoidmike — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:57:48 GMT

This discussion has been copied to a work item. Click here to go to the work item and continue the discussion.

New Post: why not 'default on' all my apps? yes, that'd be 'cache my "Cache My Work."'

paranoidmike — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:56:06 GMT

Hi Dave, thanks for posting your thoughts and experiences! (and thanks for taking the effort to join Codeplex just to post this info - I'm doubly humbled) What you describe hasn't been my personal usage model, but it's sure compelling and makes total sense now that you mention it. I'll add that to the upcoming release as a high-pri enhancement, and if I'm smart I'll even add a config option to turn off this default for anyone who doesn't like it. But hell, even I'll probably start using this. Can't predict when the next release will come though - I completely rewrote the codebase over the last year or so, to the point where I don't have a way to roll a new fix to the old codebase, *and* I've dug myself a WPF hole that has been murder to dig my way out of. Sorry, but believe me I'm still motivated to get this sucker out at some point.

New Post: why not 'default on' all my apps? yes, that'd be 'cache my "Cache My Work."'

808Dave — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:28:42 GMT

I'm probably exposing myself as a total hack, but I tend to have a mercurial pool of apps open at any given time, and virtually never shut down voluntarily - so I want "Cache" to always be there as a pain-reliever to get me as close to where I was before whatever hiccup interrupted me. Really, this seems like a no-brainer to me. Wouldn't most users want the default setting to be "all boxes checked?," that is, to recover things to as close as possible to where it was when the power failed or whatever? Sure, on those occasions when I am planning a shutdown, I could check those boxes all by hand - assuming I remember that the utility is there - but wouldn't it be a lot less painful for a user to close apps he doesn't want open, once the system reboots?

That being said, I can't believe something like this didn't come standard with the first release of Windows.

Mahalo - Dave

New Post: Windows system problem

Pammachio — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:05:01 GMT

I all,
I have a problem on my Windows Vista that began afetr the purchase of an external Hard Disk Freecom.
A few days afetr the purchase I disconnected it while it was writing and, since that moment, every time I connect and disconnect it, the PC go to freeze mode for 5 minutes.
The same thing happen even if the hard disk is disconnected: every time I start windows it go to freeze a little after the password, and every time I connect and disconnect a usb device.
I have looked for the solution everywhere, updated windows, unistalled and installed the hard disk from the device manager but I solved the problem only when I restored a recent backup.
Yesterday the Hard disk was writing a backup while Vista was installing the updates; at the end of the proceure windows restarted automatically and the problem began again!!!
The Pc go to freeze when it starts, every time I connect or disconnect the hard disk, an usb earphone that has always worked switch on but there is no audio and I don't know how many others usb devices will have problems.
Has anyone an idea to solve this problem before I throw out of the window Vista or the the hard disk?
Thank you

__________________
Never seen gift ideas like these! (geschenkideen on german or regalos originales on espanol), album foto matrimonio

New Post: Better UI

jahanbin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:14:57 GMT

Vote for number 2 here

functionality is > eye candy.

I think there would be a lot more intrest in this project once you get that going.

keep up the good work.

New Post: Better UI

MikeSL — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:03:34 GMT

Hi Mridang, thanks for your feedback on CacheMyWork. I'm reading potentially two different suggestions in your post:

An updated look & feel to the screen that is presented to select the apps to cache
A new run mode for CacheMyWork that keeps the app running in the background, and responds to logoff/shutdown/restart events

It would be interesting to tackle either of these two, but much more time-consuming to take on the latter than the former. I believe a WPF-based UI would work well for (1), which I've been interested in trying out for a while now (but haven't had any specific incentive to dive into). For (2) however, I would have to teach myself about multi-threading, and would have to closely watch for any/all memory leaks ('cause I personally hate background apps that slowly leak memory and do nothing more than just wait for rare occasions to do something). I know there are many ways to work with multi-threading, but I've never actually written something like that - so it'd likely take a significant investment of time and energy to figure that one out.

Mridang, can you give me some indication which of (1) or (2) you'd be *most* interested in? (Considering these projects are at best a part-time hobby for me, I would only be able to tackle one of them at once, and it'd likely take me a few weekends to get one or the other in releasable form. So any help with prioritization would be awesome.)

New Post: Better UI

mridang — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:33:31 GMT

Hi Guys,

I love this project but how about a similar screen like this

http://www.developer.com/net/cplus/article.php/3647411/Handling-OS-Shut-Down-in-Windows-Vista

when a shutdown/restart is detected. THis would give it better look and feel.

Mridang.

NEW POST: CacheMyWork adaptations for school environment

MikeSL — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:10:09 GMT

Hi Laurent, I really appreciate the interest and ideas you show here. I'm intrigued, and I'd like to hear more thoughts from you on this.

First off, I have to ask whether you are aware of the "Windows SteadyState" toolkit. It doesn't exactly cover the scenarios you're describing, but it's an awesome way to try to limit the amount of monkey business that students (who have a lot more time on their hands than the IT folks have) naturally get up to. It's probably not a replacement for mandatory profiles, but it's entirely possible that it would reduce the need for some of the current controls you have in place, and improve your ability to meet your other needs (including some that are implied here).

Now, assuming that SteadyState doesn't obviate the basic requirement you're describing, I could imagine a separate assembly that implemented this alternate approach. The RunOnce approach was my clever way of making this as low-impact on the user as possible, but this doesn't seem like a bad approach either.

As to opening Office documents, I've pondered this on and off, and while I haven't come up with a perfect solution to that for every version of Office, there's probably some basic behaviours of Office + the Windows shell that we could use to cover most cases.

As to Internet Explorer, I've had very little personal incentive to look into that once I found that Avant/Maxthon/IE7/Firefox all had ways to automatically save and re-open all tabs that were open when the browser was shut down or crashed. Are any of these a possibility?

As to Windows Explorer instances, the setting I'd implemented in the Tools, Options menu should have already taken care of that, but it's dependent on access to the HKCU (using a Windows Explorer registry setting). Perhaps your IT colleagues would be inclined to simply add this setting to the mandatory profile? Otherwise, I'm fresh out of ideas on how to dig up the "currently-open directory" for multiple windows (but not always multiple separate processes for) Windows Explorer.

NEW POST: CacheMyWork adaptations for school environment

BardyL — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:11:45 GMT

CacheMyWork could still be even more useful in a school network environment if a little bit adapted. Here is the context : teachers in school with networked computers in each classroom moving quickly from one classroom to another have to reopen all applications and documents they need at the beginning of each lesson... It's really to much time consumming. That means precious minutes that could use for teaching and not manipulating computer. So here are suggestions :

- could the application save the "restore settings" not in registry but in a simple file ? We have teachers moving from computer to computer in our school so those restore settings should ideally follow a user and not be attached to one computer. Of course it works already well if the user has a roaming profile. But at school we have one single shared mandatory roaming profile for all users (that simplify profile managing)... So if the user could save the "restore settings" into his personal folder on server, the problem would be solved if this same user, at his next session, could ask CacheMyWork to reoppen the previous applications on its own (that means without using the "Run once" registry key).

- could CacheMyWork reopen previous opened documents of "classical" Office application such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice ? The same with previous opened pages into classical browser (especially Internet Explorer) ? The same with the previous opened folder into the Windows Explorer ? It would be great and save so much time for teachers moving from one class to another !

I also personnaly devlopped small and middle applications for our school in Vb.net. If I could help improving your project in the sugested ways, it would be with pleasure.

Laurent Bardy

NEW POST: License updated without my consent

MikeSL — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:14:45 GMT

I've blogged more about this, in the hopes that somehow this problem will make its way into the hands of the folks operating this service.

NEW POST: License updated without my consent

MikeSL — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:28:29 GMT

I really don't believe the CodePlex folks! They did it AGAIN!!!

They have changed the license that was applied to my project, WITHOUT CONSENT, WITHOUT WARNING, as if they have some right to decide under what terms this project and its work products are to be licensed.

DO THESE MORONS NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT A "LICENSE" MEANS? Do they NOT understand the notion of who it is that has the RIGHT to change the terms of a license agreement (i.e. the author/creator/owner, not the hosting provider)?

I am really beginning to believe that these people don't take seriously the responsibility they've taken on in hosting an open-source community site like this. You would NEVER see Sourceforge screw with a project's licenses - neither would they change what license applies to any project, nor would they change any text or metadata related to an existing license.

I really don't care if the substance of the license hasn't changed, only the title attached to the license. The plain fact remains that they have changed the license that is being applied to this project, and they are doing it WITHOUT the authority to do so.

I am so frustrated with this I could spit!!! Is Microsoft employing children to run this service now?

NEW POST: does it really work?

MikeSL — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:09:24 GMT

I understand, and I have the same problem - I'm a heavy Office user and would love to have my Office documents re-open automatically as well.

There is one really cheesy workaround that I sometimes use to remember which docs I have open, especially if I have more than one open in Word or Excel:

First I'll cache the apps with CacheMyWork
Next I'll make sure I've Saved any of the open docs in the Office programs I'm using
Then, before rebooting, I'll use Task Manager or Process Explorer to kill (aka "End Process") the program instead of cleanly exiting
That way, when I start the program next time, the Recovery feature will show me a sidebar of all the docs that were last open when the app "crashed", and give me an opportunity to re-open them

I'm not saying this is as good as giving CacheMyWork the ability to have these docs re-open automatically, and I'm not saying this is a really good habit to get into, but in my experience, I've rarely had any data loss this way, and it is a pretty easy workaround to the problem. However, I'm not intending to use this as the implementation of re-opened documents for CacheMyWork.

While I work on implementing that feature, if this one helps you get what you need, great. If not, hopefully no harm done.

NEW POST: does it really work?

erhards — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:07:16 GMT

Thanks Mike for your reply and answers

again your program is a step in the right direction just not there yet -
have you looked at OPENFILES command (XP pro only) - you would think it should work but again also this one has problems

thanks for the tip with notepad++
my problem is that i work a lot with MS office files and there i really need the function to reload after reboot.
it is beyond my comprehension that MS does not offer anything like that

Erhard

NEW POST: does it really work?

MikeSL — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:30:43 GMT

Hi Erhard, thanks for your feedback!

I apologize about v1.2 - I somehow missed uploading the installer last week, so I've just uploaded it this morning (look here). I hope that it works for you.

I'm sorry your experience hasn't been what you'd hoped for - as you've discovered, my ambitions have exceeded what I've been able to accomplish so far:

Currently, the CacheMyWork application is only able to save the Command Lines for your applications
It's not able to save the open documents for most applications (except where those applications happen to store the document name and path on the process's command line, such as what you've seen with Notepad)
Further, the algorithm at present 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 it launched twice), CacheMyWork isn't currently able to remember the second instance of that application.

I've started to document CacheMyWork here. Please let me know what kinds of questions you'd like this to answer, and I'll be sure to add that to the page.

You understand the application correctly - just run it, check whichever applications you want to re-launch, and click the Save button. I have enabled one setting under Tools > Options as well (documented here).

I'm hoping to add more functionality to this soon - and I'd appreciate any additional feedback or help in prioritizing what I'll work on next. Please have a look at the Issue Tracker page and Vote on any features or bugs that you'd like me to address, and add any other issues or features you'd like to see me work on.

In the meantime, I've got one workaround that you might find useful. I've personally been using Notepad++, a free open-source application that does everything I get out of Notepad and a lot more. I find it incredibly handy to use to view and edit text files, but also a large number of "richly formatted" document types as well - e.g. XML, source code, HTML, CSS, SQL, even obscure stuff like Verilog!. And the best part is - any documents that are still open when you close Notepad++ will be automatically re-opened the next time you launch it. I highly recommend it, even if (a) it makes CacheMyWork a little less necessary, and (b) I don't have anything to do with the Notepad++ project.

I hope this helps,
Mike

NEW POST: does it really work?

erhards — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:55:32 GMT

Mike
your utility is exactly what i would need but so far i had no success with it - first i tried it on my XP home system - it remembered the apps running but only 1 doc that was open in notepad - not the second one
for excel it only remembered the the APP and no open XLS at all.

since there is no help i assume i have to run the program when i want to take a snapshot and then click SAVE - that's it
do i miss something?
i was about to write my own utility by using the XP command OPENFILES but this also is very moody.
i clearly like your approach but how can i make it work
where do i download the latest release? i use 1.1 but do not see how to download 1.2 or even 1.3

thanks in advance

Erhard