Windows Sysinternals Process Explorer

Introduction
Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you’ll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you’ll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.
The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Process Explorer can be used to track down problems. For example, it provides a means to list or search for named resources that are held by a process or all processes. This can be used to track down what is holding a file open and preventing its use by another program. Or as another example, it can show the command lines used to start a program, allowing otherwise identical processes to be distinguished. Or like Task Manager, it can show a process that is maxing out the CPU, but unlike Task Manager it can show which thread (with the callstack) is using the CPU – information that is not even available under a debugger.
Features

• Hierarchical view of processes.
• Ability to display an icon and company name next to each process.
• Live CPU activity graph in the task bar.
• Ability to suspend selected process.
• Ability to raise the window attached to a process, thus “unhiding” it.
• Complete process tree can be killed.
• Interactively alter a service process’ access security
• Interactively set the priority of a process
• Disambiguates service executables which perform multiple service functions. For example, when the pointer is placed over a svchost.exe, it will tell if it is the one performing automatic updates/secondary logon/etc., or the one providing RPC, or the one performing terminal services, and so on.

Download Process Explorer
Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals

Published By

S.G.Godwin Dinesh.MCA

Sr.System Administrator