What the heck is Wizmo?

Wizmo is an extremely useful "Windows Gizmo" I created when I could not find anything else on the Net to do similar jobs.

Wizmo is a multi-purpose, miscellaneous Windows function, "catch all" with a growing list of uncommon but useful features and capabilities.

Wizmo is present on every one of my Windows machines. I use it many times per day and I have grown to rely upon it so much that, if it didn't already exist, I would drop everything and write it again. It is that useful.

How does Wizmo work?

Wizmo is driven by one or more command line options. When it is started without any options, or with options that it can't understand, Wizmo displays the on-screen dialog shown above, but it does nothing else. The dialog explains Wizmo's operation and lists all of Wizmo's built-in capabilities. The "Ref" button toggles the display between the main screen and a quick reference page.

Wizmo is commanded to do more by using a Windows shortcut where it's possible to add commands directing Wizmo's actions:

The image above shows a shortcut to the wizmo.exe file. After Wizmo was downloaded from grc.com it was placed into the c:\windows\system directory for subsequent access. (There is nothing to install, Wizmo simply runs when requested.)

As you can also see in the image above, the Wizmo command "monoff", which immediately turns off all of the system's monitors, has been added to the command line after "wizmo.exe". Multiple commands can be added in sequence combinations to create simple script-like programs. For example, the following Wizmo command line will raise the system's speaker volume only while the user is away from the computer, activate Wizmo's built-in "graviton" screen blanker, then lower the volume to its typical setting once the user has returned:

wizmo.exe volume=80 graviton volume=20

Or, to mute the PC while you're away ...

wizmo.exe mute=1 graviton mute=0

The resulting shortcut icon can be placed on the Windows start menu for easy access, placed on the Windows desktop, or added to the "shortcut" buttons just to the left of the Windows Start button. Wherever is most convenient for you.

And speaking of the shortcut icon, Wizmo comes with a collection of different built-in icons that can also be chosen to help keep multiple Wizmo shortcuts separate and straight. (I am always looking for more icons that would be appropriate for the sorts of things Wizmo does. If you find any good ones, please attach them to some eMail and send them to support @ grc.com. I'll add them into Wizmo for everyone's use.)

What's New:

2002/01/02 --- Added "hibernate" command.
2002/01/12 --- Added "autoblank=" command.
2002/01/25 --- Added "elastic" and "stop" screen borders.
2002/01/26 --- Added "line" and "grid" initial Graviton particle arrangements.
2002/01/27 --- Added "sun" and "blackhole" screen-centered gravity fields.
2002/01/27 --- Allowed default values for "trails", "sun" and "blackhole".
2002/03/24 --- Added the "play=" verb for playing wave files.
# 2002/07/27 Added "open", "close", "open=" and "close=" commands.
# Re-engineered unblanking detection to increase reliability.
# Added unblanking on mouse buttons and mouse wheel.
# Fixed "Monoff" to prevent lapsing into standby or hibernation.
2008/03/04 --- Added "wanlock" & "wanopen" verbs for WiFi.
2008/06/25 --- Added "lock" & "blindlock" commands.