A minor rant...

I would like to say a little thing about TSRs  (Terminate and Stay Resident programs.)

Back in the olden days, there was a 640kb limit on memory.  I know DOS is ancient history, but it is semi-relevant to this thread of conversation.  With this memory limit, those of in the IT biz, needed to be aware of everything running on our machines.  If it was not needed, it needed to be ditched.  Most of these things were TSRs.

Since I was in the IT game back then, I was keenly aware of these small programs.  I was also aware whether they were needed or not.  I knew how to rid my system of them.  I still know how, but many software manufacturers are making it much harder than it should be.

In the transition from DOS to Windows 95, the TSRs were placed in the Windows "Start" menu.  There was this item called "Startup Programs".  This is where they should ALL be -- even today.  However, some software manufacturers found out how easy it was to remove these things from the Start Menu.  This would not do!  That Adobe Acrobat thing is IMPORTANT!  Even if you only open a pdf document once or twice a month.  That TSR could save you an entire 3 seconds!  Furthermore, how will it know when to download its biweekly update?

Java, YahooMessenger, MS Messenger and others do the same thing.  Their programs are so important, that they need resources to go out on the internet and check whether their software has been updated. Further, it needs to do this on a daily basis. Why does your computer behave so slowly when you start up?  Because all of the internet aware programs check in when you start your computer!  These take up your computer's resources.

So, can you just delete them from your "Start Menu"?  Heavens no!  Why should it be easy to remove their beloved software?  So, they put their TSR load commands in the Registry!  You know, because everyone loves editing their registry!  Unwanted and unneeded program launches have no business in the registry!  Luckily, Microsoft has a program (MSCONFIG.EXE) that allows you to deal with startup items.  It is a little scary, but you do not have to edit the registry directly.

So, now that we can delete these TSRs there, where else could they be?  Google puts items in your "Scheduled Task" list.  It is a cheat.  They can claim how quickly they start up -- because they do not have to waste cycles on checking to see if their program has been updated.  That is because they do it whenever they want -- in a scheduled task.  All the program has to do is to put the scheduled task back in the list if it does not exist.

We had a piece of software running in the labs that kept the computers in a "Steady State".  Anytime the computer restarted, it would return to this recorded state.  Thus, any install or change in the computer could be undone with a restart.  We were constantly struggling with Google because the updater would run in the middle of the day.  The computer would restart, and the updater would run again.  That is one of the problems of the scheduled task.  It would also randomize the times -- to some time not in our update window.

So, computer software engineers, listen up.  First, if your software does not need to be internet aware, then don't make it be internet aware.  There is no reason that a movie player, or pdf reader, or any type of document viewer needs to be aware of the internet.  If it does not talk to the internet, it will not run into security risks.

Second, if you feel your program must be internet aware, make the check when the program starts up.  I will delete and stop your TSR.  No program (other than my web browser and antivirus program) is important enough to me to be constantly running.  I know my PDF viewer will check when I launch it, so I really do not need its TSR.

Third, if you update your software, you had better not reenable your TSR.  I fight enough with your stupid placement of your stupid icons, I hate fighting with even more stuff.  TSRs and icon fighting are just too much to deal with.  Fortunately there are alternatives for many of the popular programs.  I will use a small streamlined TSR-Free program over a bloated internet aware constantly updating POS any day!