No Windows experience is complete without opening Task Manager from time to time to find out which program is using up all the RAM, or to finish a program that’s frozen for ten minutes without any hope. But it’s not even the best tool for the job—there’s something else you should be using instead.
Task Manager: Iconic and versatile
But something is missing
Task manager is now practically synonymous with Windows, mainly because it is one of the most used utilities in the operating system.
Need to end an unresponsive program? To do this, open Task Manager. Need to see how your resource usage is? The task manager is behind you. You can even manage your startup programs from the Task Manager, which is quite convenient compared to the old ways.
However, Task Manager only gives you a small glimpse of what’s going on with all your apps on your PC. If you have a problem, you need something that can give you more information.
Task manager is not always useful
I already know there is a problem, just help me fix it
The most common reason people launch Task Manager is to stop a program that is crashing, lagging, or completely frozen. Unfortunately, Task Manager can’t tell you much about the problem. Really, the only thing can tell you how many system resources the program is using and where the executable is stored on your computer.
It is also quite opaque. If you’ve ever opened Task Manager and seen a long list of svchost.exes with zero context, you’re not alone—Task Manager simply can’t display the relevant information.
If you’re dealing with any troubleshooting or just want more information, look no further.
Process Explorer should be your first stop because it solves all these problems and more.
Task Manager is bundled into Process Explorer 11
All the power of a task manager, plus more power
Process Explorer— a third-party program originally acquired by Microsoft in the early 2000s — takes the best parts of Task Manager and gives you so much more.
Unlike Task Manager, Process Explorer is designed with troubleshooting and power users in mind.
Take as an example svchost.exe, a native Windows process that hosts various Windows services. In task manager you see a long list of Service Host or svchost.exe with no explanation. In Process Explorer, on the other hand, you get all the details when you want them.
If you hover over a process, you can immediately see what executable it is associated with and what command line arguments the process started with. If you want more details, right-click the process and go to “Properties”. There you can find a lot of information, including performance history, executable location and security details, and a bit about what the application is doing in real-time.
If you’re having trouble with a Windows service crash—a problem that’s still relatively common—this is a great place to start investigating.
Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can use Process Explorer to stop or restart any problematic processes.
You can also get a DMP or dump file from a process. They’re not always easy to work with, but they can provide a lot of insight into what’s going wrong.
Process Explorer makes virus detection easy
I see you!
While Windows is better than ever at preventing malware infections, the amount of freedom given to users to install any application they want still regularly leads to malware infections.
Unfortunately, detecting malware isn’t always easy. You see a strange executable file in Task Manager (or Process Explorer) and wonder where it came from and if it could be a virus. Fortunately, services like all of us VirusTotal is available, which allows you to compare the files and executables you find against known malware and run the file through dozens of antivirus scanners simultaneously. All you need to do is download the file in question.
Process Explorer automates everything. All you need to do is right-click on your unknown process in Process Explorer and select “Check VirusTotal.com”.
The executable is then compared against the VirusTotal database and the results are displayed in the column on the right. In the case of Discord.exe, which I know is a safe, reputable program, VirusTotal shows that none of 77 anti-malware programs detected Discord as malware.
If you want more information, you can simply click on the result in question to go to the VirusTotal page instead.
This feature has been around for years, but very few people know about it, which is a shame – it’s incredible.
I don’t bother with Task Manager anymore
Given how capable Process Explorer is, I no longer launch Task Manager when I have a buggy app. I go directly to Process Explorer using A shortcut I created with AutoHotKey instead of.
