It is a advanced process management utility from Sysinternals. It shows you detailed information about a running process like its icon, Image path, command line, current directory, memory statistics, performance graph, network connections, security, environment and more. You can have a closer look of a running process to see the list of DLLs it has loaded or the operating system resource handles it has open.

This utility can be used as a replacement of the standard Task manager of Windows operating system. Like the task manager, you can kill a process or its tree, see the CPU cycles and memory a process takes.

Download the Process Explorer from Sysinternals.

Open the process explorer to see the list of all running processes, its id…

Process Explorer

Right click on any running process and select ‘Properties’ to see its properties.

In the properties window you can see the process’s icon, image path, command line, current directory.

Process Properies

The TCP/IP tab shows you the network connection status the selected process has made.

Process Network connection lookup

Process explorer display consists of two sub windows, the default top window shows you the list of all active processes, while the lower pane is shown by selecting View -> Show Lower Pane or CTRL + L or by clicking on icon.

There is two mode of viewing details of a selected process in the lower pane, they are ‘DLL’ mode and ‘Handle’ mode. You can toggle between these modes by clicking on toggle button or View->Lower pane view-> DLLs (CTRL + D) ; View->Lower pane view->Handles (CTRL + H).

If the process explorer in ‘DLL’ mode, the lower pane will show the list of DLLs and memory mapped files the selected process has loaded. If it is in ‘Handle’ mode, the lower pane will show the list of handles the selected process has opened.

The Process Explorer also has a search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular DLLs loaded or handles opened. The process explorer is useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks,and provide deep perception of the way Windows and applications work.

Process Explorer does not require administrative privileges to run.

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