Website of Windows Processes?

[Typhoon]

Does anyone know a website that lists names of processes that run on Windows? I, all of a sudden, have a ton of processes running when I run Windows XP. I am wondering if it is what is bogging down my system speed. Or could it be my RAM? I tried running McAFee VirusScan, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Ad-Aware Personal (all updated), and all of them couldn't find anything wrong...

[surur]

Generally just typing the name into google will get you a description of the process and whether its spyware or not.

Surur

[Mark Kenepp]

I Google processes all the time at my job. More often than not, I am able to find out if the process is a virus or spyware.

Of course, after looking at the running processes of our company computers for so long, I know when I see anything out of the ordinary. If you don't know what you are looking for, you could have a lot of Googling on your hands ;)

[Typhoon]

I Google processes all the time at my job. More often than not, I am able to find out if the process is a virus or spyware.

Of course, after looking at the running processes of our company computers for so long, I know when I see anything out of the ordinary. If you don't know what you are looking for, you could have a lot of Googling on your hands ;)

Thanks guys... does that happen a lot in your company? And how does it get there in the first place?

[guinness]

Does anyone know a website that lists names of processes that run on Windows? I, all of a sudden, have a ton of processes running when I run Windows XP. I am wondering if it is what is bogging down my system speed. Or could it be my RAM? I tried running McAFee VirusScan, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Ad-Aware Personal (all updated), and all of them couldn't find anything wrong...

http://www.processlibrary.com/

Type in the name of the process you're interested in, also there is a dll lookup as well.

[ironguy]

Consider downloading the free utility "Hijack this". It's downloadable in a number of places. Google it. It will give you a snapshot of all running processes that can be saved in a text file. Many PC help forums have people with similar problems as yours. They post their Hijack results and get help. Once the offending processes are identified, Hijack this can be used to get rid of them. Be careful though. It deletes what you tell it to! If you delete the wrong stuff you can get in trouble. 8O

[Mark Kenepp]

Thanks guys... does that happen a lot in your company? And how does it get there in the first place?

The task manager is the first place I go when someone complains of problems with their computer. If I see any process out of sort, I look them up. More often than not, I just find some hanging process that is causing the problem (OUTLOOK.EXE always seems to hang).

One never knows what processes are installed with any application though usually the process makes sense once you know what it is.

A lot of drivers can be seen as processes in the task manager as well.

The problem is that some viruses actually overwrite legitimate system processes and run with the same name. I don’t think that I have encountered it personally but I have read that some viruses can run under the name svchost.exe and/or rundll.exe in the task manager.

Looking at the running process is not always the best way to find viruses and spyware, but it can sometimes give you an idea if they are there.

[surur]

If you are particularly suspicious of a process the excellent free process explorer from sysinternals can give you more information than you know what to do with about that process, including which ports it opens to the Internet and the path to the process.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

Surur

[Typhoon]

That sounds cool. Thanks!