In last week’s tip we covered how you can find more information about the processes running on your computer. Today I would like to talk about how you can control running processes.

Most of you probably encounter a problem when trying to delete or move a file, and windows complain that the file is opened by another application, but it does not tell you which application has that file. So the only way to release it is to restart your computer.

Another problem is the very small amount of information that the TaskManager displays. Looking at the running processes you don’t really know which program has a particular file or directory open?
Now you can find out. Process Explorer is a free utility which can replace or work in parallel to Windows Task Manager. It shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you’ll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you’ll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Process Explorer is free and can be downloaded here