SLOAN RANGERS
Process Security Manager helps you keep tabs on what is running on your PC
WANDA SLOAN
The very helpful Process Security Manager gives a lot of background and information all processes and all startup activity on your computer, and where possible recommends what you should do about them. |
One of the common concerns of many Database readers is about processes. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del (Ctrl-Alt-Esc in Vista) and Windows' Task Manager shows dozens or even scores of processes, none of them explained, and some of them mysterious.
"I have 40 processes showing up in Task Manager," writes a gentle reader who feels that is far too many. "Why do I have some listed multiple times?"
To put it too simply: Windows is an operating system able to run many programs. A process is a program. But unlike "applications", the software you positively choose to run, the more geeky word "process" is used to describe any program that is needed, whether by the users or by the operating system.
So under Processes, Task Manager will show your browser, which you are using. There it is: Iexplore.exe, for example.
But there also are numerous other processes that are needed by Windows to make the computer useful.
The email quoted above specifically wondered about a process called Svchost.exe. When you are connected to the Internet, you are likely to see five, six, 10 mentions of this process. Windows, in its impenetrable way, needs every so often to call a new instance of this program to help your networking.
Many readers notice and worry they cannot turn off many of the processes, or at least cannot do it easily. That's not a bad thing. With few exceptions, Windows needs all those running processes you've never heard of.
Even if you manage to find the origin of Snmp.exe - for example - or Alg.exe or WScntfy.exe you should definitely not even try to turn off these processes permanently.
This does not mean you should rest in the dark, and just go along with whatever Windows hands you. Rather, I want to make the points that 40 or more active processes is pretty normal for an XP or Vista computer, and also that you must be careful about rushing to MSConfig and turning off processes, because some of these programs are absolutely vital to keeping Windows working properly.
Most readers know they can get a list of Applications, Processes and additional information from Task Manager. They also know that Task Manager gives them the opportunity to kill software that has frozen up, and is a pretty good last-chance place to properly shut down or restart the computer without having to hit the reboot button and sit through the disk checking.
But like so many of the utilities that come with Windows, the Microsoft-made Task Manager is a lacklustre, unimaginative process. There is no reason to go through life wondering what the heck the information in Task Manager means.
Process Security Manager is this week's pick of the litter. This is the single best semi-techie utility to be delivered in a few years to the incredibly garish yet somehow invariably soothing Database world headquarters up here high above the Mother of Rivers.
A product of the inventive AppZilla lab in Israel, this program combines technical and helpful information in a package that is likely to be helpful most readers.
It is a take on Windows' Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del in Windows XP, Ctrl-Alt-Esc in Vista). Microsoft lists the processes and adds some numbers that seem to have most computer users scratching their heads and wondering.
Process Security Manager gives roughly the same information, but sorts it far more helpfully, so that you can begin to get a handle on what it all means.
And then it adds the deal-maker.
Unlike any other program that I have seen, Process Security Manager contacts home base and loads an actual description of the process.
See the screen shot for an example of a common question to our Helpdesk: "What is Svchost.exe and why are there so many of them?"
Here is another one that the program popped up for me. Lsass.exe "is important for the stable and secure running of your computer. It specifically deals with local security and login policies and is part of the Microsoft Windows security mechanisms." Okay, so don't prevent that one from running at Startup.
Oh, did I mention that Process Security Manager also provides the same service for everything it can find in your startup folders and registry locations?
Finally you can find out that Imjpmig.exe is part of the process to display Asian (i.e. Thai) characters - and decide whether to keep it or lose it.
You can use the program to close running and startup processes, and you can even save a list in HTML format of the processes you have worked on. This is plain-Jane software at its most useful.
Process Security Manager can be found at http://www.app-zilla.com, with a hyphen before the "zilla".
Email: wandasloan@gmail.com.
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Next
