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Understanding Process Management and Tools

Jun 4, 2025

Lecture Notes: Process Management and Process Explorer

Overview

  • Expanded on process management.
  • Discussed tools for manipulating processes in Windows.
    • Task Manager
    • PowerShell commandlet get-process
    • Taskless Utility
    • Signals such as Control C

Introduction to Process Explorer

  • A tool for managing processes in Windows not built-in, but downloadable from the Microsoft website.
  • Supports specialists and system administrators.
  • Offers detailed views and control over running processes:
    • Top window pane: View of active processes.
    • Bottom window pane: List of files used by a selected process.

Features of Process Explorer

  • Search Functionality:

    • Search for processes using Ctrl + F or the binocular button.
    • Example: Searching for notepad.exe.
    • MUI files: Multilingual User Interface packages.
  • Process Hierarchy:

    • Processes can be nested, indicating parent-child relationships.
    • Example: notepad.exe as a child of command.exe.
  • Process Management Options:

    • Kill Process: Terminates the selected process.
    • Kill Process Tree: Ends the process and its descendants.
    • Restart: Stops and restarts a process.
      • Example: Restarting notepad.exe, changing its parent to proc.exp.exe.
    • Suspend: Pauses a process without terminating it.
      • Suspended processes do not use resources.
      • Can resume the process by selecting the resume option.

Additional Considerations

  • Process Explorer provides monitoring information.
  • Further details can be explored in Microsoft's documentation (linked in supplementary materials).
  • More features to be explored in upcoming lessons.