📅 2023-Mar-27 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ sysinternals ⬩ 📚 Archive
Process Explorer is my most favorite tool from SysInternals. This tool used to be a must-have before Windows 8 shipped a much-improved Task Manager. I still find it essential to have Process Explorer around since I find it to be lighter, more packed with information and functionality than Task Manager.
Download: This tool can be downloaded from here.
Install: There is no installer, they ship as a zip file containing binaries for x64 (procexp64.exe), x86 (procexp.exe) and to run as Administrator (procexp64a.exe). I like to add shortcuts to these binaries to my Start Menu as described here.
Find process that has a file open: A common problem in Windows is that some hung process might have a file open and that prevents you from moving or deleting that file or its folder. Choose Find -> Find Handle or DLL option and enter a substring of the file path (like the filename for example) and Process Explorer will list out all the processes that have this file open. Click on the process listed in this dialog and Process Explorer will highlight that process in the main window list, allowing you to right-click and investigate/kill that process.