Process Explorer:A more powerful task manager

I just read an article at Extremetech on a microsoft program called Process Explorer. I've just started using it, looks pretty interesting. If you are trying to figure out what program is causing your computer to slow down this might be very useful.

works on Windows 2000 SP4 Rollup 1 or above, XP, VISTA.

It is free too.

Extremetech article:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2333033,00.asp

Link to download the program:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

 

That's one of those fantastic little apps written by the folks who used to work at a company called SysInternals - until Microsoft bought em, lock, stock and barrel. Still, it was nice enough of M$ to keep the SysInternals utilities in the free domain. If you want, the whole lot can be d/l'd as a "suite" of tools from here. Most of them were written by a chap by the name of Mark Russinovich, one of the authors of Windows Internals - one of the more complete discussions of the deep-down plumbing of the Windows-OSes.

 

Yep.. though I need to check if the process explorer I have is v11.21!! But yeah, its very nice application and very detailed to learn about the processes.

Btw, Shyster, many tools in the "Sysinternals Suite" is also great Thanks a lot... but as I see and understand, quiet a few of them don't have the Vista compatibility in them... so do you think its safe to run in Vista, those utilities that don't have vista compatibility? Would I be right to assume its better 'not to' run those, and just use the one' which have been specifically mentioned to be supported on Vista / could be run on Vista / compatible on Vista?

Thanks.

 

It should be ok to try out any of the utilities that don't actually make any changes to the system that you cannot control - that way, if the utility doesn't work under _Vista, you'll know ('cause it won't work ), without also doing any damage to your system.

Another approach would be to send an email to Mark Russinovich (he's got a blog page that he updates reqularly that I think is linked to from the Sysinternals page) asking him which of the utilities can be safely used under _Vista.

 

I knew about process explorer - great for finding out what is hidden behind the svchost process

Didn't know about the suite.

Many thanks!

 

Some of the stuff in the suite is cute, but not really useful, and some of the stuff in there is very useful. Another utility I've played around with that I've found to be useful and that complements the Sysinternals utilities is the DPC Latency Checker from Thesycon - it's a utility that will allow you to get some idea of how much latency deferred procedure calls are suffering from on your system, and can be useful in identifying drivers that were badly installed, corrupted, or having a conflict with something else.

 

Yes, but in the process of buying SysInternals they didn't shut them down. Instead Mark has a new found freedom to continue to write new and update existing utilities. Lots of good stuff in his blogs too!

Gary

 

I quite agree - I'm actually amazed (and very grateful) that MS agreed to that; Mark is a fantastic resource, and probably contributes a lot of indirect goodwill to MS by his continued activities.

 

Thanks Shyster, for your reply.

Yes I have written to Mark. Lets see what he says.

Meanwhile, yes, I agree with you and Gary, about how good these utilities are, and considering its all fine with MS makes it even more better, for we can trust these utilities do no harm, but just give good insight into windows

 

Update: From Mark

So there, I hope others find this useful and 'comforting'..

And yeah, there were some which didn't have vista listed, but I was curious as hell to try them, and they actually ran normally!!! Anyways..

Btw, just to get it all in one place, thanks and full credit to the OP for this thread, and to Shyster for the emailing tip, here are some more links which might be useful together

Sysinternals Utilities > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545027.aspx

Sysinternals Suite > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/0e18b180-9b7a-4c49-8120-c47c5a693683.aspx

Sysinternals Security Utilities > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/25e27bed-b251-4af4-b30a-c2a2a93a80d9.aspx

Sysinternals Miscellaneous Utilities > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb842059.aspx

Windows Sysinternals > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

Mark's Blog > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963890.aspx

 

Sounds good! Now let's get out there and explore those processes!

 

^ lol > I'm already doing it... wow, I never knew so many processes are out there... and I love the "AutoRuns" utility too incredible insight

 

And that's just the surface stuff. You can get a lot deeper down with the Sysinternals stuff.

 

Yep. Every single one of them is top shelf stuff. I used a couple of them to uncover the truth about the "special" boot defrag of TuneXP. With them I found out there was nothing "special" about it. It just invoked built in Windows defrag functionality.

Gary

 

in process explorer, which column name should i select if i wanted to see how much memory each process is using? i'm too noob to understand all those selections...

 

Right click on the column tab inside process explorer, select columns, look under 'process memory' > there are lots of things you can customize to show up, like minimum working set, etc.

 

thats exactly what i'm talking about, theres too many selections, i'm not sure which is what. haha
i'm not going to ask for an explaination of each one, but where can i view the memory usage that the default windows task manager shows?

 

try 'virtual size', 'working set', 'private working set'.......

 

Process explorer is a handy little tool. I have their old tool, Process monitor.

 

Yeah... I have been looking at millions of things I have never seen before, with regard to processes and stuff...

BUT I don't understand many things at all.... Right now, googling every new things I am coming across.. Nice to know new things though

Btw, with that AutoRuns thing, can someone please tell me if its possible to change the boot order of the program' starting at bootup? I have been trying to see if thats possible, but couldn't find anything like that. At the moment, as much as I understand, its just an utility that's laying out everything for the user.... Its nice though.