Questions and Answers with Bret Lowry, the new owner of WinPatrol

I had a couple of features I’d like to see implemented into WinPatrol.  I asked for Bret’s input and here’s what he had to say.

Changing Winpatrol’s startup tab:

Bret's Response:

“Did you know that you can tell WinPatrol Explorer which tab to open from the command line?

If WinPatrol Explorer is not running, you can have it run and open to the ActiveX tab as follows:

winpatrolex.exe -activex

Also, if you right-click on the Scotty icon, you can select which tab you want opened.

Also, you can change the tab that Scotty opens to in the start menu icon by making the following change.

1. Locate the icon

2. Right-click on it and select Properties

3. For the "Target:", append a space and then -activex. You should do this outside the quotes

4. Click OK

5. Now your start-menu icon will open directly to the ActiveX tab.”

Protecting the default browser status from being changed:

Bret's Response:

“As for alerting when the default browser is changed, did you know Microsoft does not have a setting for default browser? If we need to open an html file, we simply tell Microsoft to open it using "the default browser" and it does it.

Of course, I'm not saying it can't be done either. We'd need to write code that monitors every browser individually and then detect if any go from being the default browser to no longer being the default browser.

I'll add this as a request, it isn't at the top of the list but if we find an easy way to do this it will go up.”

Winpatrol on Windows 7 seems slower to respond verses my XP computer:

Bret's Response:

“We made some improvements in V33 (patched) that will be coming out soon.

Lets see how that works.

In addition, later this year we plan on making some major upgrades to WinPatrol.”

Cookies.

I find WinPatrol’s cookie management system too cumbersome to use.  I’d like to see something like the Firefox extension, Self Destructing Cookies.  A setting to block all cookies would be nice or a setting to have all cookies deleted on shut down or startup.

Bret's Response:

“We plan on improving usability of all of the features. I like what you suggest as far as "delete all" on shutdown/start-up. (Either will work and you'd never really know which we used because by the time the computer starts they'll be gone)  Well, unless you take out the hard drive.

I find the cookie tab cumbersome to use. I think all of the tabs can use some improvements. I'm going to be writing all that up soon, then the work will begin. When we get done, people will either love the updated WinPatrol or continue to use V33. I'm wagering on loving the improvements
.…
Thanks,

Bret Lowry”

Thanks Bret for taking the time to respond to my suggestions.  I’ve been using Winpatrol for many years and highly recommend it.  Bret has a new product out called WinPrivacy, check it out when you have a second.

https://www.winpatrol.com/winprivacy 

Or if you just want to see what this WinPatrol thing is all about:

https://www.winpatrol.com/winpatrol/