HWiNFOMonitor version confusion

S

SchokoFrosch

Member
Hello,

it would be nice if someone could help solve my confusion about different versions of HWiNFOMonitor. My gadget on my old computer looked like this:
1699625446285.png
After reinstalling Windows on the same computer, I installed HWiNFO againg together with HWiNFOMonitor, but know it looks like this:
1699625554355.png

I do not mind the different optics or colors, but I would like to have decimal places values again.

Sadly, I did not write down the exact version of the gadget on my older OS but I am quite sure that it was also HWiNFOMonitor.

Does anybody have a clue which version I had? I tried to configure the new version to show decimal places but failed.

Thanks in advance!
 
GnatGoSplat said:
Not sure if you figured it out in the last 3 weeks, but you had the "HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget" that can be downloaded from here: https://www.hwinfo.com/add-ons/
Not HWiNFOMonitor which I think is a 3rd party add-on.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much! That's what I was lookig for...
Unfortunately, the "HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget" keeps telling me "HWiNFO64 not running or Sidebar support not enabled" although I have Shared Memory Support enabled and I am on the sensors screen.
At the same time, "HWiNFOMonitor" is working properly.

I tried several times reinstalling HWiNFO64 as well as 8GadgetPack, clearing all registry entries and deleting remaining directories in /AppData/Local of both programs. I also tried older versions of HWiNFO64 until version 7.00 and also the portable versions, but I am not able to get "HWiNFO Sidebar Gagdet" to work, keep getting the same error: "HWiNFO64 not running or Sidebar support not enabled".

Does anyone maybe know what I could try next to get it to work again?
 
The HWiNFO Gadget needs to be configured via a dedicated section in sensor settings - look for the "HWiNFO Gadget" tab.
 
Martin said:
The HWiNFO Gadget needs to be configured via a dedicated section in sensor settings - look for the "HWiNFO Gadget" tab.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your answer. I created a modified screenshot to show my current settings together with the problem.

Additional information:
  • Windows 10
  • HWiNFO64 v7.66-5271 (no portable version)
  • 8GadgetPack v37.0.0

I also tried it on my laptop yesterday, same problem occured, unfortunately.

Maybe there is some setting I am missing?

Can anyone confirm this problem?


Thanks in advance!

hwinfoGadgetFehler.png
 
How are you starting HWiNFO - manually or automatically with Windows start?
You might also try to open the regedit tool, navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\HWiNFO64\VSB
and check if that contains the sensor items configure for gadget.
 
To answer your first question: I start it manually.

Regarding your registry suggestion: I had no HWiNFO64 entry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software when using my everyday-Windows-account (no admin)
I guess this is the source of my problem.

When I log in to my admin account, the HWiNFO64 Sidebar Gadget works fine and there my registry looks like this:

  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER
    • Software
      • HWiNFO64
        • Sensors
        • Summary
        • VSB

Then I tried the following, with no success:
  • Exported the user settings ("Backup User Settings") when logged in as admin.
  • Switched to my unprivileged user account and double-clicked the backup file (.reg)
  • Now HWiNFO64 Sidebar Gadget shows no error anymore, but shows static values which do not update (values from my admin account to the time where I created the backup file, I guess).


Is there any chance to also get it to work with my underprivileged user account?


...and thanks for your help and your fast responses!
 
HWiNFO requires administrative rights to run, so I'm not sure how you're running it.
Problem is probably the "Current User" which might be different between HWiNFO and the Gadget depending on how you run them. They both should be run under the same account, otherwise HWiNFO might export the data into a different account as the one consuming them.
 
When I start HWiNFO, I will be asked to type in my admin password (when logged in to my user account).

Now it works when I try to run 8GadgetPack from my user account explicitly with admin privileges.
(Since both are running under the same user with admin privileges).

I think I can live with that, thanks!


After some testing, there is still a little bit of confusion when comparing the behaviour of HWiNFOMonitor with HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget.
Summary of my findings so far:
  • HWiNFOMonitor:
    Depending on the user with which I executed 8GadgetPack (user account or admin), HWiNFOMonitor shows information in the respective users' layout.
    That matches my expected behaviour. But this also means that 8GadgetPack does not have to run as admin to get HWiNFOMonitor to work.
    Even though HWiNFO64 runs as admin, HWiNFOMonitor doesn't seem to care if 8GadgetPack is run with admin rights or not.

  • However, different story with HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget:
    In contrast to HWiNFOMonitor, the HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget seems to need 8GadgetPack to run with admin rights.

Just out of curiousity: Is there a simple explanation or simple fix for this discrepancy?
If yes, would be nice having 8GadgetPack to not run with admin rights each time in my case.

Thanks!
 
HWiNFOMonitor uses a different interface to HWiNFO - Shared Memory, and the HWiNFO Gadget uses registry.
Since the gadget interface is exposing data into the HKEY_CURRENT_USER node, then both the publishing and consuming applications need to be run under the same user.
 
Thank you for your explanation, this makes sense now...
So I guess I have to run 8GadgetPack with admin rights if I want to keep using HWiNFO64 Sidebar Gadget with my user account ;)


In general, I realized that I would rather prefer using HWiNFOMonitor because of both the capability to run 8GadgetPack without admin rights and its richer options for customization...
But the only reason why I probably keep using HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget instead is the following:

Displayed measurement values are not restricted to the range [0, 9999], but instead can exceed 9999 and can also be decimal point values, like 0.001.

In HWiNFOMonitor, this restriction is present, unfortunately.

Simple example, where it would matter:​


Let's say I want to monitor "Current DL rate".
By being restricted to values between 0 and 9999, at the moment I do not see an option to monitor large and small values at the same time:
  • Let's choose unit of KB/s
  • (relatively) large: range of 30 000 KB/s (full-speed-level)
  • small: 0.001 KB/s (byte-level)
  • HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget: No problem, values are displayed in the same format as in Sensor Status window of HWiNFO64
  • HWiNFOMonitor: Not possible as far as I know... There I have to choose between displaying small or large values, apply a constant factor (1000 or 0.001, respectively) and change the unit accordingly (from KB/s to B/s or MB/s, respectively)

Apart from that, I am very happy that you gave me a solution to my problem with HWiNFO Sidebar Gadget!

If somehow one could tell me how I can tackle the above described range-problem with HWiNFOMonitor, I would switch to HWiNFOMonitor and would be more than just very happy :)
 
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