Knowledge Base

Is there a way to get PingPlotter 5 to launch faster?

Question

I've noticed that after updating to PingPlotter 5, the program takes longer to launch. Is there a way to speed this up?

Solution

Launch time is very important to us. We're regularly testing on a variety of machines (including a 10 year old machine running Windows 7) to make sure that PingPlotter can launch as fast as possible (and we're continually on the hunt for ways to improve the launch time).

PingPlotter 5 is written in C#, and deploys in IL (Intermediate Language as opposed to native code). During install, we ask the framework to optimize and build the most optimized native code for your computer based on the machine's specific capabilities. This process is requested when completing the install - but the actually optimization/compilation process can take a few minutes on some machines, so it continues in the background after the program launches. Depending on how busy a machine is, it can sometimes take an hour (or more) before the process actually runs. Until the optimization process is finished, launch times can feel pretty sluggish - even on the fastest of machines.

If you're patient, you can just wait a while and everything should complete on its own at some point. If you're not patient (we fall into this category), you can force an optimization now.

To force an optimization, run the "ngen" command from an administrative command prompt. If everything was installed in default directories, you can open an administrative command prompt and enter this to force an optimization process:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ngen install "C:\Program Files (x86)\PingPlotter 5\PingPlotter.exe"

(Note: this command should match most paths, but if you've installed PingPlotter somewhere other than the "C:\Program Files (x86)" directory, you'll need to adjust the command accordingly).

If you should find yourself with any questions, or needing any assistance - don't hesitate to reach out to our support team!