Tag: PROCESSES

Tech favorite WinPatrol -- a great tool for keeping an eye on system processes and files -- has been updated to 20.0.2011. Support for 64-bit Windows installations has been improved, and WinPatrol is generally more responsive now than in previous versions. WinPatrol's "move to delayed start" option provides a nice way to improve your system's startup time, and it has also been tweaked for better ...

WebKit, the rendering engine used by both Chrome and Safari, is currently undergoing major redevelopment in order to support per-tab processes and out-of-process plug-ins by default. In one smooth move, Apple will be able to bring Chrome-like speed and security to its Safari browser. Don't be fooled by its rather grand-sounding name of "WebKit2," however. This is more of an update than an ...

Task Manager is an extremely handy tool, but it does lack a few features that would make it even more useful. Say, for example, the ability to control + click or shift + click to quickly select multiple processes you want to terminate. Like so many tiny omissions in Windows, there's a free utility which steps in nicely to add that missing functionality. Spacetornado Killer is a tiny (44KB) ...

Fans of the ribbon interface who want a full-featured alternative to task manager, check out Yet Another Process Monitor. Apart from showing task manager-esque information about running processes, YAPM also provides details about Windows services and your network activity. The system information panel provides realtime monitoring of processor, memory, and disk activity. Service startup types ...

One of the coolest features in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 is the way the web browsers treats each open tab or window as a separate process. That means if one tab crashes, the browser won't necessarily close. Plugins like Adobe Flash can also fail without crashing the browser. Mozilla is working on bringing a similar feature to Firefox. It's not ready for prime time yet, and it won't ...

It's usually pretty obvious when one of your Windows applications goes rogue and starts consuming more resources than it should. Your system becomes sluggish and unresponsive, Usage Monitor is a small, free program that allows you to watch processes for excessive use of memory and GDI/user objects. Set a target on a process - say, 300Mb memory on Firefox - and Usage Monitor can alert you a ...

SMP Seesaw is a small, simple application that gives you full control over your dual-core processor Windows system. Select a running process, click the move button, and you can quickly divide your active tasks between your cores any way you see fit. Sure, Windows is supposed to do this manually, but some of us would rather make it happen ourselves, thanks. A pro version (still free) is available ...

If your computer is running slowly or a program has stopped responding, you can fire up the Windows Task Manager, identify the runaway process, and kill it. That works fine when the process is clearly labeled with a name like firefox.exe or digsby.exe. But what do you do with rapimgr.exe or hpqste08.exe? ProcessQuicklink is a free add-on for Windows Task manage that helps you figure out which ...

If you need to kill a process in Windows, or just try to figure out which program is using up all of your precious system resources, all you have to do is open the Windows Task Manager. But what if you want to kill a non-responsive program, but you can't figure out where it is in the Task Manager? Sometimes the process names don't seem to bear any resemblance to program names. Daphne solves this ...

The Windows task manager might show you a list of running processes, but it does a pretty poor job of letting you know what some of those processes are actually doing. You don't need a Ph.D, to figure out what will happen if you terminate firefox.exe because it's using up 100% of your CPU cycles, but what about spudsvc.exe? ProcX is a free utility that will show a list of running processes also ...

If you're like most Download Squad readers, you've probably got a few dozen windows open on your computer at any time. And when your system locks up, it's not always easy to tell exactly which process is the offender. If you're using Windows, usually you have to do a Ctrl+Alt+Del, pull up Windows Task Manager, and search the processes bar for applications using an unusually large amount of ...

Sysinfo.org has a great database of programs that might start running when you boot your computer, and each is tagged according to the following scheme: Y - Normally leave to run at start-up N - Not required - typically infrequently used tasks that can be started manually if necessary U - User's choice - depends whether a user deems it necessary X - Definitely not required - typically ...