Process Explorer

Process Explorer is a free advanced task manager and system monitoring utility for Windows, developed by Sysinternals, which is now part of Microsoft. It provides detailed information about running processes and system performance, offering more functionality and insights than the standard Task Manager included with Windows.

Process Explorer shows comprehensive details about each process, including its parent-child hierarchy, memory usage, handles, threads, and loaded DLLs. It provides real-time information about CPU, memory, disk, and network usage, both system-wide and for individual processes.

The utility can show which user account is running each process and the executable path of the process, which is helpful in identifying unknown or suspicious processes. Users can search for specific handles or DLLs being used by processes. This is particularly useful for debugging and for identifying resource or file locks.

Process Explorer allows you to kill processes, set process priorities, suspend processes, and more. Processes are color-coded for quick identification (e.g., Windows system processes, third-party application processes, etc.).

Process Explorer is used to identify which processes are consuming excessive resources, such as CPU or memory, which can help in diagnosing system slowdowns or crashes. It can help in identifying potentially malicious processes that may not be visible in the standard Task Manager.

Developers use Process Explorer to understand the resource usage of their applications and to investigate issues such as memory leaks or handle leaks. In cybersecurity, Process Explorer can be used to detect unusual activity or processes that could indicate a security breach.