PC_Advisor_Issue_264_July_2017

How to: Use Process Explorer to manage your PC
If you use Windows, there’s a good chance you’ll have used the
built-in Task Manager. Whether it’s to kill a frozen process, track
down some malware, or figure out what’s eating up all that memory,
the Task Manager is an invaluable tool for any intermediate or
advanced user. But for enthusiasts that want extra control, more
information, and a host of extra features, there’s a more powerful
alternative available: Microsoft’s free Process Explorer tool.
Process Explorer isn’t just a supercharged version of Task
Manager with more insight and control over your system’s
processes. It also includes the ability to sniff out viruses and
identify when programs are clinging to software you want to delete.
Part of the Sysinternals suite of Windows tools (formerly
‘Winternals’), Process Explorer can be downloaded from TechNet
a la carte or as part of the entire suite. If you plan on completely
replacing the Task Manager with Process Explorer – and
eventually you probably will – you should get the whole suite.
More on that later. Here are just a few of the things you can
do with Process Explorer – available at tinyurl.com/o7k92tu.
The basics
When you first open Process Explorer, there’s a lot
of information there and it can look overwhelming.
Don’t panic. Here’s what everything is.
In the top half of the main window, you’ll see
a list of processes. This shouldn’t be completely
unfamiliar if you’ve used the Details tab in Task
Manager (aka the Processes tab in Windows
XP and earlier). It lists the process name, the
process description, CPU and memory usage,
and the company name of the software’s creator
– something that’s very useful when you’re
malware hunting. You can customise your
columns to include more or less information by
right-clicking on the column heading, just like
any other program with sortable columns.
The processes are presented hierarchically,
which means if a process spawns another process, the child
process will be listed nested underneath the parent. If you’d
prefer an alphabetical listing instead, just click the ‘process
name’ column heading. This list is constantly updating, but if you
want to freeze it in time – say, to examine a process that appears
and disappears quicker than you can click on it – you can hit the
space bar to pause the updates.
There’s a lot more information here – the scrolling line charts
at the top of the window, the colour codes, the lower pane showing
DLLs and handles – but for now let’s focus on the process list.
There’s a good chance you might find a group exists, and joining
this will put you in touch with plenty of people who might be
able to aid you in your quest.
Search your email contacts
Many people have used Task Manager to end a
misbehaving process at some time or another. This
functionality exists in Process Explorer as well,
where it’s called Kill Process when you right-click
a process. Process Explorer does one better than
the stock Windows Task Manager by giving you the
option to kill the entire process tree. Right-click
a process, then click Kill Process Tree; or select
Process > Kill Process Tree; or just highlight your
process and hit Shift - Del.
Why would you want to kill a whole process
tree? Sometimes when a process stalls out, it’s not the real culprit.
Instead, one of the child processes it has spawned is the actual
bad seed (we’re looking at you, Chrome). Even when the original
process is the true villain of the story, killing it can sometimes
leave orphan processes behind that can’t do anything without
their parent, but which suck up resources anyway. Killing the
process tree solves both problems at once.
July 2017 www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to 95