PersistentWindows/Help.md

PersistentWindows Quick Help

Command Line Options

Command line option	Meaning
-delay_start 10	Delay the application startup by 10 seconds. Useful if PersistentWindows autostart fails to show the icon because of Windows Update.
-redirect_appdata	Use the current directory instead of the User AppData directory to store the database file. This option is also useful for launching multiple PersistentWindows instances.
-gui=0	Do not display the PersistentWindows icon on the System Tray. Effectively runs PersistentWindows as a service
-splash=0	No splash window at PersistentWindows startup
-notification=1	Turn on balloon tip and sound notification when restoring windows
-silent	No splash window, no balloon tip hint, no event logging
-ignore_process "notepad.exe;foo"	Avoid restoring windows for the processes notepad.exe and foo
-debug_process "notepad.exe;foo"	Print window positioning event logs for the processes notepad.exe and foo in event viewer
-foreground_background_dual_position=0	turn off dual position switching
-prompt_session_restore	Ask the user before restoring the window layout upon resuming the last session. This may help to reduce the total restore time for remote desktop sessions on slow internet connections.
-delay_auto_capture 1.0	Adjust the lag between window move event and auto-capture to 1.0 second, the default lag is 3~4 seconds.
-delay_auto_restore 2.5	Adjust the lag between monitor on/off event and auto-restore to 2.5 seconds (the default lag is 1 second), in case restore is incomplete or monitor fails to go to sleep due to restore starts too early.
-redraw_desktop	Redraw the whole desktop after a restore in case some window workarea is not refreshed
-fix_zorder=1	Preserve window Z-order for automatic restore. The Z-order of a window indicates the window's position in a stack of overlapping windows.
-fix_offscreen_window=0	Turn off auto correction of off-screen windows
-fix_unminimized_window=0	Turn off auto restore of unminimized windows. Use this switch to avoid undesirable window shifting during window activation, which comes with Event id 9999 : "restore minimized window ...." in event viewer.
‑auto_restore_missing_windows=1	When restoring from disk, restore missing windows without prompting the user
‑auto_restore_missing_windows=2	At startup, automatically restore missing windows from disk. The user will be prompted before restoring each missing window
‑auto_restore_missing_windows=3	At startup, automatically restore missing windows from disk without prompting the user
-invoke_multi_window_process_only_once=0	Launch an application multiple times when multiple windows of the same process need to be restored from the database.
-check_upgrade=0	Disable the PersistentWindows upgrade check
-auto_upgrade=1	Upgrade PersistentWindows automatically without user interaction

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Shortcuts To Capture/Restore Snapshots

Snapshot command	Shortcut
Capture snapshot 0	Double click the PersistentWindows icon
Restore snapshot 0	Click the PersistentWindows icon
Capture snapshot X	Double click the PersistentWindows icon, then immediately press key X (X represents a digit [0-9] or a letter [a-z])
Restore snapshot X	Click the PersistentWindows icon, then immediately press key X
Undo the last snapshot restore	Alt + click the PersistentWindows icon

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Other Features

• The dual positioning feature allows any window to have different position/size in foreground and background mode.

  • Bring a foreground window to its previous background position and z-order
    • click the empty desktop background area (which is not occupied by any window)
  • Bring a foreground window to its previous z-order (while keeping the current size)
    • ALT click the empty desktop area
  • Bring a background window to foreground WITHOUT restoring to previous foreground position
    • press any of CTRL/SHIFT/ALT key when activating the window.

• Restore a new window to its last closing position

  • Ctrl click the PW icon

• Put the current window to background, useful if the window is maximized

  • Ctrl-Alt click the PW icon

• Create named capture(s) to disk

  • To save a named capture to disk, Ctrl click the "Capture windows to disk" menu option, then enter a name in the pop-up dialog
  • To restore the named capture from disk, Ctrl click the "Restore windows from disk" menu option, then enter the name of the previously saved capture in the dialog

• Replace the default app icon with your customized one

  • Save your icon file as pwIcon.ico and copy it to C:/Users/\<YOUR_ID>/AppData/Local/PersistentWindows/, or copy it to the directory where you are invoking PersistentWindows from using the -redirect_appdata command argument.
  • Save the second icon file as pwIconBusy.ico in the same directory. This icon is displayed when PersistentWindows is busy restoring windows.

• Enable/Disable auto restore for any (child or dialog) window:

  • To include a child/dialog window for auto restore, move the window using only the mouse
  • To exclude a window from auto restore, hold Ctrl Shift keys then move the window