Core Temp 0.99.7.3 is in most part a bug fix release and is ready for download now.

First is the list of changes:

New: “Start Core Temp with Windows” feature on Windows Vista and 7.

Fix: Taking a screenshot would not capture the whole window in Vista/7 with Aero mode.

Fix: Windows 7 taskbar Cycle mode only shows up after the first interval has elapsed.

Fix: Overheating protection UI bug.

Fix: The Mini-mode menu was not checked when Mini-mode was activated.

Fix: Corrected the placement and size of the load label on Phenom based processors.

Fix: Order of appearance of the system tray icons in Windows 7.

Update: The appropriate G15 menu is now checked depending on the status of the G15 plug-in.

Update: Added support for 12 core processors to temperature offset adjustment window.

In this version, several small user interface (UI) bugs were fixed and missing things added.

The only thing I want to talk about a little bit is the ‘Start Core Temp with Windows’ part. In Windows XP, 2000 and 2003, adding a registry entry into a specific key is all that was required to get Core Temp to start with Windows, because these versions did not have User Account Control (UAC). Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft added UAC to their OS. It usually requires user intervention when an application requests elevated privileges from the OS.

Since Core Temp is a standalone application, which does not install anything permanently on the computer, it must start a kernel mode driver to get access to the hardware. This requires elevated privileges, in turn Windows asks the user whether to allow the application to execute or not. When the OS is booting up, Windows will not ask the user for permission, it will simply block any such application from starting automatically for security reasons. To get around this problem, up until now, we had guides all over the web on how to create a scheduled task with administrator privileges, to allow such programs to start with Windows.

Starting with version 0.99.7.3 the way Core Temp handles Windows Vista and 7 is different to how it handles older OSes. In older OSes Core Temp will still create a registry entry, as it did until now. In Vista, 7 and future OS Core Temp will create a new scheduled task, or update an existing one, named ‘Core Temp Autostart’. This task will be configured automatically to start Core Temp when the user logs in from it’s current location (ie. C:\Users\user-name\Desktop\CoreTemp\Core Temp.exe).

If you ever wish to prevent Core Temp from starting with Windows, simply uncheck the respective checkbox in the settings window, and the scheduled task Core Temp previously created will be disabled. You can always manually delete it by using Task Scheduler. In short, Core Temp now automates what we as users had to do manually for years. I believe this will make using Core Temp easier for all of us, and especially to new Core Temp or novice computer users who do not appreciate jumping through hoops to get a program to simply start automatically when they boot up their machine.

– Arthur Liberman (aka The Coolest)