How to Use Prime95: Options Menu

# OPTIONS MENU

##### Applies To

Cpu | Tray Icon
Preference | No Icon
Torture Test | Start at Bootup
Benchmark |

## Cpu

The CPU menu choice lets you tell the program how often the program will run and how much memory the program can use. The dialog box also displays your CPU type, speed, and capabilities.

## Preference

The Preferences menu choice lets you control how often a line is written to the main window and how often a line is written to the results file. It also lets you change how often intermediate files (to guard against power failure and crashes) are created. You can control how often the program checks to see if you are connected to the Internet. The program polls whenever it has new data to send to or work to get from the PrimeNet server. If you are low on disk space, you can select one intermediate file instead of two. However, if you crash in the middle of writing the one intermediate file, you may have to restart an exponent from scratch. You can also tell the program to be quiet, rather than beeping like crazy, if a new Mersenne prime is found. You can also make prime95 go idle whenever your laptop is running on battery power (does not work under Windows NT/2000/XP).

## Torture Test

The Torture Test choice will run a continuous self-test. This is great for testing machines for hardware problems.

## Benchmark

The Benchmark choice times the program on several FFT lengths. You can then compare your computer's speed to others list at http://www.mersenne.org/bench.htm

## Tray Icon

The Tray Icon choice will cause prime95 to have a small icon on the taskbar when it is minimized. You can activate or hide the program by double-clicking on the small icon. If you place the cursor over the small icon, a tool tip will display the current status.

## No Icon

The No Icon choice is only enabled if the Advanced Menu is activated with the password. Using this menu choice means there will be no prime95 icon on the taskbar once you minimize the program - making it very hard to reactivate! You can reactivate the program by trying to execute prime95 a second time. Alternatively, you can turn this feature off by editing prime.ini and change the line "HideIcon=1" to "HideIcon=0", then reboot.

## Start at Bootup

Checking the Start at Bootup menu choice will run prime95 as a service that is started when your computer boots up. Windows NT/2000/XP users need administrator privileges to use this feature. This method of starting prime95 is better than creating a shortcut to prime95 in the startup folder. That is because services run even when no one is logged on. These are the details you should be aware of:
In Windows 95/98/Me:
The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices registry entry is created. You will not be able to tell any difference between prime95 running as a service and prime95 running as an ordinary process.
In Windows NT/2000/XP (without administrator privileges):
In this case the menu text is changed to "Start at Logon". The HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run is created. Prime95 will run only when you are logged in.
In Windows NT/2000/XP (with administrator privileges):
There are a few minor quirks when running as a service. You shouldn't run into these quirks in normal operation. You can only change this option once and it will take effect when the service is started or stopped. You will need to exit prime95 running as a normal process before starting the prime95 service. Finally, the prime95 window will only appear on one users desktop. Only one prime95.exe program can be run as a service. If you have a dual processor system you'll want to run two instances of prime95. Instead of running a second prime95 from another directory, run the second prime95 from the same directory with the -A1 switch (go to a DOS window and type “prime95 –A1”). Finally, if you are worried about giving users access to a GUI service running in the Local System account, you can turn off the "Allow service to interact with desktop" option in the services control panel applet or run the GUI-less NT service version available at http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm. These options are more secure than using the No Icon menu choice