Process Explorer is a freeware computer program for Microsoft Windows created by Sysinternals, which was acquired by Microsoft Corporation.

Process Explorer is a system monitoring and examination utility and can be used as the first step in debugging software or system problems.

Process Explorer can be used to track down problems. For example, it provides a means to list or search for 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. Or as another example, it can show the command lines used to start a program, allowing otherwise identical processes to be distinguished. Or like Task Manager, it can show a process that is maxing out the CPU, but unlike Task Manager it can show which thread (with the callstack) is using the CPU – information that is not even available under a debugger.

Process Explorer is one of a set of administration and monitoring utilities available from the Microsoft Sysinternals website.

Until 2008 Process Explorer worked on Windows 9x/Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista including 64-bit versions. The current (Aug 200 Process Explorer Homepage states that it works on Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 and upwards.

Recent versions downloaded with the Sysinternals Suite fully support 64 bit versions of Vista and Windows 7 x64 with a second binary, procexp64.exe. This is transparent and the user need not run it or even know about it; procexp.exe calls it as needed.

Instructions: Once downloaded, unzip and double click (exe) application.