Tag: process

Process Liquidator: Kill Processes With One Click

Process Liquidator is a small utility that pretty much serves one purpose. This is to have have quick access to running processes and if needed terminate them easily.

A right click on a process name terminates it. Process Liquidator displays process name and process id – and by left clicking on a name additional information about the process. Double click on any running process to see its child processes, if any, or click on the Childs button to see all. After clicking on a process name click on the Wins text to list Windows the process has open.

It is docked to the right side of the screen with an option to change docking position, it also auto hides by default and requires hovering the mouse on configurable edges of the screen to re-open. This and other options such as Warn before terminating and are available in the Config section (see images).

Process Liquidator should work on Windows 2000 and newer.

January 5, 2014
Process Piglet: What’s Eating All The RAM?

Process Piglet is a small tool released as part of NANY 2014. It monitors top memory consuming programs and warns of any large changes in RAM usage.

Process Piglet is probably most useful for monitoring browser behaviour. Of course there are programs that by nature require a lot of resources, those written poorly that have memory leaks and others that don’t release memory properly when different tasks are done or the program is closed. The more common culprits, however, are browsers. Also their add-ons and plugins (hint: Flash) are notorious for bringing even relatively powerful computers to their knees.

Process Piglet provides a window showing top memory users. It generates an alert when memory usage for a process changes a lot and offers the user to terminate or restart it. The same plus other options like navigate to folder are available by right clicking the process name in the program window.

The programs settings include an Exclusions option to ignore processes and by default only cares about processes using more than 50MB, this can be changed by right clicking the tray icon then Edit Options —> Memory Options.

Process Piglet should run on Windows versions going back to Windows 2000 and since it is new is evolving quickly.

January 3, 2014
Freeware Xyvos System Explorer

Xyvos System Explorer is a simple process viewer that provides potentially useful information. The information provided is divided into three sections or tabs.

The first tab is the process explorer which is a simple version of the Windows’ task manager. It provides extra information about the processes. The path to the program, the process ID (PID), description, company name and whether or not it is digitally signed.

The TCP/UDP Connections is perhaps more useful in providing a glimpse at which applications are accessing the internet. This may prove useful when trying to make sure malware is not attempting to dial out of a system. The path to the process, the protocol used and the local and remote addresses are given as is the state of the port or connection (listening, etc.)

The AutoRun Entries tab is a look at startup processes and is a simple alternative to MSConfig or other startup viewers. The process path, again, is potentially useful information.

Xyvos System Explorer should run on all Windows versions and is a single small executable.

Note: You may notice 1e100.net addresses if you monitor your outgoing processes. It is “a Google-owned domain name used to identify the servers in our network.” that Google uses to monitor safe sites and warn you about potential attack sites. See http://support.google.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=174717

March 16, 2012
Freeware Shorts: System Explorer (Everything About Your Computer)

System Explorer (Version: 3.6.2 as of this post) bills itself as a system management tool and an explorer of system internals. It is more than just a system profile builder. System Explorer provides lots of, almost too much, information about many aspects of the system or computer in a tabbed interface. Some tabs are open and visible when starting the program, others can be opened in the Firefox new tab style by clicking the + button to the top right and choosing from the available sections. Most sections or tabs have additional capabilities via a right click. Examples include terminating processes, copying file paths to the clipboard, virus checking a file online on virustotal.com and many more.

System Explorer also has a status bar at the bottom with CPU, RAM, swap file and other usage information. A similar graphical overview is also available via the color of its tray icon or hovering over the icon itself.

Tasks is like the windows task manager’s Applications tab, it provides a list of open programs. Processes list all running processes with process id (PID), CPU time, memory usage, ‘sub’ processes, parameters the process may be running with, online security check (click the security check icon and any details available in the system explorer database will be shown online) and more. Also like many other sections, System Explorer has a search feature near the top right.

Modules lists the dll files the running programs are using, like some other sections this can be filtered to not show Windows’ own. Performance (see image) shows graphs for overall processor or CPU, page fault, swap, network connection, kernel and physical memory usage and lots more. Services list all services running with their driver type, name and startup type or mode (automatic, manual or disabled). Drivers lists all drivers running on the system including name, startup type and location/path. Windows is much like Tasks but has a list of all open windows, so if several instances of one program are open you see them here. Autoruns has a list of all processes or programs that run automatically on startup. Uninstaller has the shortcuts to uninstall programs. History is like an event viewer of sorts in that it contains a list of all recent actions, for example “New TCP/IP 127.0.0.1:1113 PID=3292 “Palemoon.exe””. Snapshot takes snapshots of the file system and registry and saves it for future comparison.

There are additional sections that list Users, Security Info with basic information on anti virus and Windows firewall states and Additional Info with lots of information on the system like Windows serial number, computer name, system folders, system date, audio and video codecs, fonts, file types and lots more.

It is really necessary to explore the program or have a look at the online help to really discover all its features. System Explorer is free for personal use and runs on Windows XP and newer versions.

November 25, 2011
XP Syspad Centralizes System Tools

XP Syspad from the very useful xtort.net site is described by its author as

Windows system monitoring utility that allows easy access to Windows system information and Windows system utilities

Startup of XP Syspad is on the slower side, especially at first launch as it seems to be collecting relevant info including the running processes list that it present in its main window. Continuous run of the program is not at all memory intensive and it uses well under 10MB of memory. The main attraction of XP Syspad is that it presents over 250 utilities and functions in one central place. Some of the features worth mentioning is easy two click access to such things as the Windows’ HOSTS file, navigating to the Disk Partition Manager, getting an expanded list of recent items opened under My Menus—>Recent, recovering Window’s and Office product keys, finding out the Windows’ installation date and even a dynamic small calender under the ? menu.
Some functions did not work or not as intended on the tested system (Windows XP Pro SP3), for example System—>List Installed

Drivers and the rather awkward (see image) Network—>Download Internet File. In the former case nothing happened and the latter case google.com’s homepage was the default download and action was taken even when the operation was cancelled.
Also of note is the list of programs installed (Programs—>List Installed Programs) because the list presented included things like Norton that have long been uninstalled. XP Syspad must be reading the list or components from the registry, where programs such as Norton are notorious for leaving orphan entries, because certainly such entries do not exist in the Add/Remove Programs section of the system’s control panel.

Of most use to not so expert computer users but notwithstanding a few oddities XP Syspad an useful utility overall. Requires Windows 2000 or XP.

April 17, 2009