Why Reboot?

Today Jeremy pointed to an application called Why Reboot?, which, in the words of its author:

… is a small (~60KB) Windows application that displays a list of pending file operations that will occur after rebooting your computer. We hope this helps you determine the extent of any post-reboot changes made by an installer.

This looks to take the same approach as PendMoves from the Sysinternals folks. Because part of my team’s responsibility is our product installers, we’re always on the lookout for unnecessary system reboots. When folks in QA or other users report that our installer prompted for a reboot, the output from PendMoves is usually helpful.

It looks like the two utilities take the same approach and check the same registry keys. The Why Reboot? page has a little more narrative explaining the keys it’s checking, while Sysinternals also includes a command-line tool called MoveFile that will let you copy/rename/delete in-use files at the next start.

(Via Jeremy’s Linkblog)

Update 2001-01-22: Changed Sysinternals URL now that they are part of Microsoft.