What is Process Explorer?

Process Explorer is a free task manager and system monitor application for the Windows operating system. It is a part of the SysInternals suite of products, which consists of tools that help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications. Some other well known products from this suite are Process Monitor, Autoruns, PsTools,  and AdExplorer. You can see the full list of products here.

Process Explorer can be thought of as an advanced Task Manager, a program usually used to get information about computer performance and resource usage. This tool picks up where Task Manager leaves off – it will show you the detailed information about each process, provide you the CPU usage tracking for processes, figure out which process has loaded a DLL file, enable you to to kill or suspend a process, and much more.

Process Explorer can be very helpful in tracking performance problems of a Windows device. For example, you can use it to list the named resources that are held by a process or all processes. This can be used to track down what is holding a file open and preventing its use by another program. Procexp can also be used to show the command lines used to start a program, allowing otherwise identical processes to be distinguished.