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WinLED uses color coding for the two types of activity, namely read and write. Thus, when the disk is accessed for writing purposes, the icon will become red, while for reading data, the icon will blink green. Unlike other products of this sort WinLED avoids the configurability of any system parameters but only shows the results of performance counter 'Physical Disk'. This has the advantage that it also works in multi-user environments even if Windows has to deal with various users and languages in roaming mode.

Thus, it is possible to estimate at a glance whether the computer is really busy with background activities or is in idle. Analysis tools, which show a lot more details on the HDD activities, can not and should not replace this small free tool.

Permanent display of WinLED in the system tray

If WinLED is not or not permanently displayed in the system tray of Windows after installing, it may be because that Windows displays the icon of WinLED on notifications only. To configure the permanent display of WinLED in the system tray, simply drag the WinLED Icon in the notification area at the spot where you want to find WinLED.

If this is not possible on your computer, please call "Taskbar and Start Menu" of the Windows Control Panel. In the tab "Taskbar" please click on the button "Customize..." of the notification area.  In the popup dialog a list of all notification icons, which are configured to display in the system tray appears, including WinLED.

The behavior of the symbol for WinLED is configured by default to "Hide icon and notifications". Change the behavior of the symbol for WinLED to "Show icon and notifications" in order to announce Windows to always appear the symbol of WinLED. Now WinLED is permanently displayed in the system tray of your computer.

Representation in different colors

In the past, I received demands of users of WinLED who can not recognize certain colors, and therefore have problems to distinguish between green and red colors of WinLED. For these users is implemented a new feature in WinLED 1.3.3, which does display the current status of the Performance Counters 'Physical Disk' in the colors blue and yellow instead of the colors green and red. WinLED 1.4 provides the additional color combination Cyan/Magenta. As of WinLED 1.4 users who feel too much distracted by the flickering of the LED can switch to a display in the form of a trend diagram.

Installation

As a result of numerous requests, the installation of WinLED is now optimized in such a way that even a non-technical, experienced user is able to install the tool on his Windows computer. The installer is easy to use even in computers in a network environment. The fully automated installation of WinLED in larger network environments is currently not supported.

Features:

• Supported languages (Installer): German, English

• Drive Selection: The display of the activities can be limited to individual drives (from version 1.3).
• Color selection: For the color differentiation between reading and writing different colors can be used (from version 1.3.3).
• Trend display: Instead of a flickering LED you can switch to a trend diagram view.

System requirements

To install WinLED on a computer following requirements must be met:

• Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows Vista to Windows 10
  (All 32- or 64-bit variants are being supported.)
  
• Microsoft Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5
  

Downloads

WinLED 1.5 Installer .NET 4.5 License Type: Freeware File Size: 10.17 MB Downloads: 349811

ATTENTION!
Please read current warnings about Windows 10 Defender (see below) before installation!

Awards / Recommendations

The following awards or recommendations of WinLED can be found on the following websites:

WinLED downloaden

Further Informationen

General tips and tricks using WinLED: Answers to frequently asked questions

If you find useful the tool WinLED so that you would like to send me a donation, then I have set up a donation button here: The donation is voluntary and not linked to any conditions! WinLED can also be used free of charge without donation.

Warnings of antivirus tools

January 2015 - Antivirus program AVAST

In WinLED from Version 1.2.0 of July 2014, the antivirus program AVAST raises a virus alert called "Win32: Evo-gen [susp]" since December 2014 and deletes WinLED from the hard disk.

This is a so-called "False Positive" => a false alarm of the antivirus program. AVAST itself even stated that only "suspicions" that may indicate a virus is referred to collectively as "Win32: Evo-gen [susp]", but the affected program will be deleted as if a virus has already been found.
After searching in the Internet, the problem appears to be widespread and there are complaints about the fact that AVAST has been paralyzed in this way many harmless programs. Unfortunately an attempt to contact AVAST was unsuccessful.

WinLED does not contain malware of any kind if the tool has been downloaded from my blog. In addition, I had once again recompiled WinLED: Fortunately AVAST no longer is raising the virus alert above.

Who got an AVAST false alarm with respect to WinLED should download and install the version from 1.2.2 here from my blog. The same also applies to any other type of real virus alerts. The download of WinLED is legal possible only on my blog, but in the Internet, there are also numerous illegal download offers of WinLED and among them I found downloads, was where WinLED does not contain or was infected with malware.

Januay 2016 - Antivirus program BitDefender

Meanwhile, I have got new feedback, therefore this time the antivirus program BitDefender will report a "False Positives" for the current version WinLED 1.3.2. That's why I had WinLED analyzed at virustotal.com. virustotal.com currently uses 53 different antivirus solutions (including BitDefender) to analyze a file for malware and the analysis of WinLED on virustotal.com found 0 of 53 possible matches. If you want to convince yourself, please follow this link directly in order to review the scan results for WinLED 1.3.2: http://www.virustotal.com/winled

January 2018 - Antivirus program Norton Security

According to a loyal user of WinLED, this time anounced by the Norton Security antivirus program seems to end up adding a Trojan to the WinLED tool. In the current version WinLED 1.5.0 Norton Security claims to have found a Trojan called "Heur.AdvML.B". I then did an updated search on virustotal.com, where WinLED was examined by search engines from more than 60 antivirus solutions, including the manufacturer of Norton Security - Symantec Corp. - who does not want to have found any malware in WinLED.

July 2019 - Antivirus engine VBA32

Again, I've been alerted by loyal users of WinLED that an antivirus engine, this time "VBA32" reports a "False Positive" called "CIL.StupidCryptor.Heur" from multiple WinLED components (including the installer) in all versions. All this engine has discovered: WinLED uses obfuscation tools to prevent hackers from decompiling and modifying the WinLED program code. This should not be a reason for a virus alert and so see it then the other 66 antivirus engines on virustotal.com.

September 2019 - Windows Defender

Since the beginning of September, the Windows 10 Defender discovers a Trojan called "Win32/Fuery.B!Cl" and blocks WinLED. Therefore, as a developer, I had repeatedly contacted Microsoft support and said that WinLED in the version I signed did not contain any malware. Each time a Microsoft Analyst analyzed the incident with the following result:

We have removed the detection. Please follow the steps below to clear cached detection and obtain the latest malware definitions.

1. Open command prompt as administrator and change directory to c:\Program Files\Windows Defender
2. Run “MpCmdRun.exe -removedefinitions -dynamicsignatures”
3. Run "MpCmdRun.exe -SignatureUpdate"

Alternatively, the latest definition is available for download here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/definitions

Thank you for contacting Microsoft.

While this is nice to confirm that WinLED does not contain malware, but:

1. Unfortunately, the Windows Defender malware detection update guide is aborted with an error message.
2. After a normal Windows Defender upgrade, WinLED will be temporarily accepted but will be blocked again after a Windows restart.

Recently, a Microsoft analyst confirmed that WinLED does not contain any malware and Microsoft just can not explain why the Windows Defender wants to detect a Trojan in my Windows 10 system:

The file is not malware and we cannot reproduce any detection on the file. If detection is still observed, please follow the steps below to capture support log files from the system reporting detection.

On Windows 10, from elevated command prompt, change to directory "%programfiles%\windows defender" and execute mpcmdrun.exe with option GetFiles: cd "%programfiles%\windows defender" mpcmdrun.exe -GetFiles

On Windows 7, from elevated command prompt, change to directory "%programfiles%\microsoft security client" and execute mpcmdrun.exe with option GetFiles: cd "%programfiles%\microsoft security client" mpcmdrun.exe -GetFiles

All created log files will be compressed into MPSupportFiles.cab. Please send us the detected file and MPSupportFiles.cab via our web portal https://aka.ms/wdsi (select Submissions/Submit a file). We will continue the investigation once we receive the support log files.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft.

Unfortunately, I can not do anything myself, because I can not remove nonexistent malware from my programs. If you want to support me, follow the instructions of Microsoft on your system and please also report your result to Microsoft. Please make sure, that the "Submit File" is WinLED.exe. The MPSupportFiles.cab I had last always made available in the public area of my OneDrive.

I will not make any further attempts to troubleshoot Microsoft and have now approved the alleged threat of WinLED in my Windows Defender. Who wants to continue to use WinLED will probably have to live with it. If you want to do that as well, please note that I signed WinLED with my name and therefore only the version of WinLED should be used signed by me.

October 2019 - Windows Defender

Since the beginning of October, WinLED has also been detected as malware called "Win32/Unwaders.A!ml" by Windows Defender of Windows 10. However, the signed version of WinLED does not contain any malware. Again, only the configuration of WinLED in Windows 10 Defender as a permissable threat.

Observe high CPU load

Again and again I get the feedback that WinLED causes a CPU load between 1-10% and this load would put too much strain on the batteries of the used notebook. In a LAN, a user observed that WinLED triggers CPU load on some computers and not on others.

Well, WinLED itself does not cause any significant measurable CPU load. However, WinLED uses the PerformanceCounter 'PhysicalDisk' to determine the current load of mass storage and the counter uses functions in the driver of the respective mass storage device. Depending on the implementation quality of this driver from the hardware vendor, this may result in more or less CPU load during queries by WinLED.

The problem of the CPU load is therefore hardware-dependent. Most likely, an update of the hardware drivers to the latest version for the affected notebook can help. If the hardware manufacturer does not solve the problem, the user of the affected notebook must live with the CPU load or renounce WinLED .