Each week I run a full tape backup on one of my systems over night. This consists of a job that uses two SCSI tapes drives and automatically rolls over from one tape drive to the other.
Normally, this backup runs for about 8 hours (4 hours per tape).
Last night, the job ran for a very inconvenient 13 hours. This meant that my system was not available for use first thing in the morning.
What happened? NIS09 Full Idle Scan kicked in during the middle of the backup. The disk thrashing between these two activities pretty much ground both to a halt.
Aside: NIS09s Idle Detection is not that sensitivity to CPU/Disk/Network activity. From my own testing, I have concluded that it mainly is looking for keyboard and mouse interrupts. Thus, NIS09 background tasks are likely to fire if the machine is busy but unattended.
In order to prevent this happening again during tape/DVD/network backups, I had no option but to write some ugly scripts to be invoked from my backup jobs. I say ugly, since the scripts turn Silent Mode on/off by sending a stream of key strokes. I would much rather have two simple command line options like:
UiStub.exe /SilentOn:6
UiStub.exe /SilentOff
Thanks.
Here is an example of the these ugly scripts which I am now using (written in WinBatch, a Windows scripting language):
; Turn on NIS09 Silent Mode ; ; On 07/18/09 (revised 07/18/09)
; Definitions ; NIS09EXE = “C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.5.0.135\uiStub.exe” NIS09Params =“” NIS09Dir = “C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.5.0.135” SilentModeDuration = “1”
; Get Parameter or Default
If VarType(Param1)<>0 Then ; Only do this if defined! SilentModeDuration=Param1 End If
Each week I run a full tape backup on one of my systems over night. This consists of a job that uses two SCSI tapes drives and automatically rolls over from one tape drive to the other.
Normally, this backup runs for about 8 hours (4 hours per tape).
Last night, the job ran for a very inconvenient 13 hours. This meant that my system was not available for use first thing in the morning.
What happened? NIS09 Full Idle Scan kicked in during the middle of the backup. The disk thrashing between these two activities pretty much ground both to a halt.
Aside: NIS09s Idle Detection is not that sensitivity to CPU/Disk/Network activity. From my own testing, I have concluded that it mainly is looking for keyboard and mouse interrupts. Thus, NIS09 background tasks are likely to fire if the machine is busy but unattended.
In order to prevent this happening again during tape/DVD/network backups, I had no option but to write some ugly scripts to be invoked from my backup jobs. I say ugly, since the scripts turn Silent Mode on/off by sending a stream of key strokes. I would much rather have two simple command line options like:
UiStub.exe /SilentOn:6
UiStub.exe /SilentOff
Thanks.
Here is an example of the these ugly scripts which I am now using (written in WinBatch, a Windows scripting language):
; Turn on NIS09 Silent Mode ; ; On 07/18/09 (revised 07/18/09)
; Definitions ; NIS09EXE = “C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.5.0.135\uiStub.exe” NIS09Params =“” NIS09Dir = “C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.5.0.135” SilentModeDuration = “1”
; Get Parameter or Default
If VarType(Param1)<>0 Then ; Only do this if defined! SilentModeDuration=Param1 End If
I actually like the set it and forget (idle time) behavior in NIS09. However, I do not like full scans running concurrent with backups or file system defrags.
At the moment, my scripts for turning Silent Mode on/off are working just fine. However, I do prefer command line options. Keystroke scripting is tedious and can easily get broken.
This is yet another thing where Windows dragged us backwards. Yes, there are scripting utilities, but in other environments every program had an extensive collection of invocation options, input/output files, and return codes. Windows has very little of this. Therefore any scripts you write tend to be ugly and frail. :(
After the initial one-time setup of a scan schedule, it is then "set it and forget it". However, if your scripts do the trick, no point in fixing something that's not broken.
I also like command line options. I start several programs with command line options via batch files. However, not many new programs even have command line switches anymore.
When my office switched from Lotus-123 to Excel many years ago, I entered the world of Windows kicking and screaming! Today, it's hard to remember the DOS days. I'll show my age by asking: Do you remember "Edlin"?
