Power desk in startup..why?

[oceaneer]

I notice powerdesk in my startup files. I am trying to recover some system resources, and would like to know what exactly it does, and will anything bad happen if I disable it?

I also have Em_exec this comes from the Logitech directory...anyone know what it does?

[anid]

You can safely disable Pdesk without any problems. Em_exec is the logitech mouse controller software (button assignments, all that other fun crap you see in the logitech mouse control panel). If you disable it, you'll be stuck with the regular assignments you get from the MS mouse control panel. Win98 does have native support for wheel mice, though, so depending on how you use your mouse, you may not loose much disabling it.

Gee, there was a lot about Matrox in that post, wasn't there?

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"I wrestled with reality for 27 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

[oceaneer]

Thanks anid, but what does power desk actually control? Will I lose some card functionality?

Disabling em_exec doesn't seem to lose me any features, so out it goes.

Well, we should perhaps have referred to the "Matrox" Power Desk just to keep ourselves on track

[Spire]

If you use PowerDesk hot keys (I do -- extensively), then you'll need to have PDESK.EXE loaded. You'll also need it if you use other PowerDesk features such as saving and restoring window and icon positions.

[anid]

Ummmm, I've never used pdesk at start-up, but I have used the save / restore function a few times. I'm not entirely sure you have to have it running for that, but I could be wrong (at the time I used it, the pdkernel.dll file was initializing, it can call pdesk if it needs to). You will still have access to all of the advanced matrox display properties (monitor customization, color setting, etc), so you don't lose anything from that end. And pdesk is completely seperate from the drivers, so the card will perform the same without it.

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"I wrestled with reality for 27 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

[Rik]

There is an often-overlooked program called 'Pdeskcmd.exe' in windows\system\ which can be used to call Powerdesk functions when Powerdesk isn't loaded. I use it in conjunction with hotkeys to change screen modes and flip TV output on and off. Unfortunately it leaves Powerdesk resident in memory, but it's useful for retaining the functionality of Powerdesk when you don't want it runnning at startup.

[Spire]

Allow me to clarify:

PDESK.EXE is required for automatic save/restore of icon and window positions, as well as for the hotkeys.

Rik has helpfully noted that you can set up Explorer hotkeys to launch PDESKCMD.EXE with whatever PowerDesk commands you want to execute. This works, but aside from leaving PDESK.EXE loaded afterwards, this will also give you sluggish response, since Explorer isn't exactly snappy in responding to its own hotkeys (stupid Microsoft programmer).

I don't know about you, but I find PowerDesk's zoom hotkey feature absolutely indispensable; it's one of the reasons I've stuck with Matrox all of these years. PDESK.EXE has a really tiny footprint when you're using it only for hotkeys (although it can be a dog when automatic save/restore is enabled); if you're like me, this is an extremely small price to pay for such great functionality.