19 - 03 - 2024

WinLED

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WinLED is a substitute for non-visible disk LEDs and displays the disk activity by an animated icon in the Windows desktop system tray. The tool runs minimized in the notification area of Windows and when disk activity is detected, it will blink to signal that.
winled demo10

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.DragToTray

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.

Display as LEDDisplay as Trend Chart

GreenRed32

Display the status of the performance counter 'Physical Disk' in Green and Red.

  • Green: Read from storages.
  • Red: Write to storages.

TrendChart RedGreen32

Display the status of the performance counter 'Physical Disk' in a trend chart of the colors Green and Red.

  • Green: Read from storages.
  • Red: Write to storages.

BlueYellow32

Display the status of the performance counter 'Physical Disk' in Blue and Yellow.

  • Blue: Read from storages.
  • Yellow: Write to storages.

 

TrendChart BlueYellow32

Display the status of the performance counter 'Physical Disk' in a trend chart of the colors Blue and Yellow.

  • Blue: Read from storages.
  • Yellow: Write to storages.

CyanMagenta32

Display the status of the performance counter 'Physical Disk' in Cyan and Magenta.

  • Cyan: Read from storages.
  • Magenta: Write to storages.

TrendChart CyanMagenta32

Display the status of the performance counter 'Physical Disk' in a trend chart of the colors Cyan and Magenta.

  • Cyan: Read from storages.
  • Magenta: Write to storages.

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

License Type: Freeware
File Size: 10.17 MB
Downloads: 335047

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:

sp100clean   

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 .

Comments  

 
# hiro 2014-07-05 02:36
Please teach it

WinLED

Do you support Windows 8.1 ?


hiro
http://all-freesoft.net/
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# Matthias 2014-07-05 08:03
Yes, it does.
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# Luis 2015-02-28 15:10
WinLed is very nice BUT it is an annoyance to click the taskbar when you need to see the disk activity. You then go to your work and again the task bar disappears and hence WinLed.
The best option is to place WinLed in the top left side of the screen.
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# jswafa 2015-08-20 00:12
Quoting Luis:
WinLed is very nice BUT it is an annoyance to click the taskbar when you need to see the disk activity. You then go to your work and again the task bar disappears and hence WinLed.
The best option is to place WinLed in the top left side of the screen.


Depending on your OS version, you should be able to drag the icon to the notification area to make it stay there, or choose "always show".
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# Chris 2015-03-25 05:03
WinLED is great. It is small, does what I want and is, so far, totally reliable. WinLED is the reason that I have, for the first time, unchecked 'Auto-hide the taskbar' and am glad that I did. I have been using/building/ repairing computers since TRSDOS and sgi IRIX. Thank you for WinLED.
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# Jluna 2015-07-31 01:19
Great app, version 1.3 working flawless on windows 10. Thank you!
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# jswafa 2015-08-20 00:15
Great app! Any chance you could modify the installer to allow install on the Win 10 Insider Preview?
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# GMueller 2015-11-16 17:55
Since last update of windows 10 the programm doesn't work any more. It reclaims needing Windows XP SP3, Vista SP", 7,8,8.1,10, Server 2003 SP2, Server 2008 R2, 2012 or 2012R2.
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# Matthias 2015-11-16 18:01
Please download and install the latest version which is available on my blog.
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# phattio 2015-11-18 04:05
Quoting Matthias:
Please download and install the latest version which is available on my blog.


thank you matthias! winLED is the best and the latest version works perfectly with latest windows 10!
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# Wayne 2016-01-30 20:07
Excellent Tool !!! Installed on Windows 10 with no problem and does exactly as stated. HP quit putting led disk light in PC's to save 10cents ? Thanks !!!!
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# Stephen Gyenes 2016-02-03 19:48
Dear Matthias,

This application is very useful. My DELL Latitude 3550 not have hdd attention led. It is solve this deficiency, and working well on windows 10 pro x64 default configuration.
But I found a bug.

I have another problem in my laptop. This page review my other problem and provide me the solution: http://moretags.[censored].hu/2015/08/windows-10-blurry-text-fuzzy-font-and-solutions.html
And the bug is: after I run this commands:
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DpiScalingVer /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00001018 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v Win8DpiScaling /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v LogPixels /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000078 /f
The winled is not working more.
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# Stephen Gyenes 2016-02-03 19:49
When I set back my original registry values:
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DpiScalingVer /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00001000 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v Win8DpiScaling /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000000 /f
REG ADD "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v LogPixels /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000078 /f
and I restart my notebook, WinLED application working well again.

Any other information need, write me, ask me.
Big thanks for your work in this projekt.
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# Matthias 2016-02-04 00:06
Yea! That is it.
Thanks a lot for the tip, Stephen.

Now the latest update of WinLED will work well.
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# Stephen Gyenes 2016-02-04 07:41
Dear Matthias,

Very BIG thanks for rapid bugfix!!

Good day, all the best!!
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# Matthias 2016-02-10 20:41
Today I have published an updated version of WinLED 1.3 with improved logging.

Who has a problems with the display of WinLED, should look into the application log of the event history of Windows.

If there occur error events to WinLED, please sends it to me so I can identify and fix the error.

Thanks and best regards
Matthias
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# sunny 2016-04-07 06:15
Excellent little application. Pity it has no preferences to allow changing the LED colours
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# GoJoLo com 2016-05-18 14:33
Hi - I like to load WinLED 10 times, the delay between events makes for great visual display. I would like to see you offer the same type indicator for USB. To see if my wireless devices are being hacked/accessed without me. Well done.
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# Windy 2016-05-24 04:59
Great app and thanks for providing alternative colors and embracing diversity. You've made the world a better place. :)
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# JoJo 2016-06-21 05:50
Refuses to display on WIN 10 - using latest version of WIN LED
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# Matthias 2016-06-21 07:43
Here, WinLED runs on all Win10 computers.
I suspect inferior antivirus tools as a cause that WinLED does not appear on some computers.
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# Karoly Zalka 2016-06-26 14:26
I have the same problem. Winled simply does not show on a PC with a FRESHLY installed windows 10. I have checked everything I can think of. However,
Winled works perfectly well on all the other PCs where Winled were installed a couple months ago.
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# phattio 2016-06-26 19:35
precisely!
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# fr3d 2016-07-08 12:03
Is there a way you can make an option that display each icon for each device and within each icon there's a number indicating which drive it is e.g drive 0 will have an icon and number 0 in the middle of the icon and drive 1 will have an icon and a number 1 in the middle of an other icon instead of having all drives as one icon.
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# Matthias 2016-07-08 16:28
No, I don't have any plans to expand this tool.
Contrary, I plan to remove the features for enable/disable individual drives. Since the introduction of this feature I get messages that WinLED has no more function. It seems the Windows Performance Counter for individual drives do not work as desired.
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# bobz 2016-08-25 23:09
#1-How do I know I have downloaded the latest version?
#2- Will the one I downloaded today work on my Win10 64bit computer?
#3- If I wanted to delete after install would it be easy to do?
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# Matthias 2016-08-26 19:53
Quoting bobz:
#1-How do I know I have downloaded the latest version?

WinLED is available to download only on my blog. If you downloaded WinLED here, you use the latest version.

Quoting bobz:
#2- Will the one I downloaded today work on my Win10 64bit computer?

Yes. The current version of WinLED works well on my Win10 64bit computer.

Quoting bobz:
#3- If I wanted to delete after install would it be easy to do?

Please do not delete WinLED just like that. You can use the Installer as Uninstaller and uninstall so easily WinLED.
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# Ronny 2016-10-07 02:06
good night, while trying to perform the installation of the error occurs Winled 5000. There was the package to plan the Desired action. I've tried to install on multiple machines but the error persists.
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# Matthias 2016-10-07 17:59
Hi Ronny,
Thank you very much for your error report.
Now the WinLED version 1.3.4.3 can be downloaded here, which can be installed on cultures other than English and German.
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# Kevin M 2017-04-07 19:34
I cannot install on Win10 64-bit Dell XPS15, it says: No Physical disks were found on this computer.
Details: Cannot load Counter Name data because an invalid index " was read form the registry.
WinLED now exits.

Any help appreciated. version 1.4
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# Matthias 2017-04-07 22:22
Did you use the latest version of my blog?
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# jswafa 2017-04-08 04:39
Welcome back, Matthias! I was concerned when your blog was gone for a time. There are a large number of new laptops and notebooks that don't have a convenient way to see HDD activity, and there is no other app that I've found that provides the data in such a simple and elegant way. Thanks for providing this!!
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# Matthias 2017-07-02 19:32
Hello,
After I got the feedback that WinLED users can not open the WinLED contextmenu, I had looked for the problem and published a new version of WinLED on my blog.
The context menu should now be able to be opened again as usual.
The problem has only occurred with users who have more than one drive. If you have only one drive in your computer, neither you will discover a change in WinLED nor will you need this new version.
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# caribbeanknight 2018-05-28 21:46
Hi there,
is there any way to manually uninstall winled fully because I have some remaining files from an older version (also still shows up in config program - Add/remove programs) but it doesn't work.
When I try to uninstall or reinstall by using the latest version it always comes up with an error and nothing changes.. Any thoughts?
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# Matthias 2018-05-29 19:52
Hmm, please go to the link above "Answers to frequently ask questions".
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# Matthias 2019-09-25 21:58
Since early September, the Windows Defender reports under Windows 10 that WinLED would contain a Trojan.
That's not the case!
The details are described in the section "Warnings of Anti-Virus Tools" in this article.
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# Richard 2020-11-12 14:20
Thanks for this great WinLED software!
Is it possible to write precisely on your blog the current version of WinLED as well as the changelog please?

On softpedia, this is version 1.5.3.3 and I don't see a specific version number on your blog
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