Software Gadgets

What’s Running is a handy little program that will give you a lot of information about what is running on your system. (Don’t let the slow web site turn you off. The program is a much faster that its web site.) What’s Running is something like Task Manager, except it tells you a lot more about what is running on your computer. This program will not only tell you what processes are running on your computer (as the builtin Task Manager will), but it will also tell you what services are running, what Internet connections are active (and which program is using them), what dlls and other modules are loaded, and what programs Windows is automatically starting when it boots up.

Here is a description of the features from the What’s Running web site:

Processes - Inspect your processes and find all the relevant details that you need! Get performance and resource usage data such as memory usage, processor usage and handles. Also you get all details about what dll:s are loaded, what services are running within the process and what IP-connections each process has.

IP-Connections - Find out information about all active IP-connections in the system. Get a list of what remote connections each program have and find out what applications are listening for connections.

Services - Inspect what services are running and stopped, find the process for your services and inspect it’s properties easily!

Modules - Find information about all dll:s and exe:s in use in your system. For each module you can find all processes that have loaded the module. Also you can find the full path and immediately open the folder where the file is located.

Drivers - Find information about all drivers, for running drivers you can inspect the file version to find out the supplier of the driver.

Startup - Manage all your startup programs. Disable, edit, delete, create new easily. Manage startup programs regardless of source (registry or Startup folder).

While this program provides a lot of information that will only be of interest to power users, it has many features (such as the ability to disable services and startup programs from a clean interface) that average users will find useful as will. What’s Running is free for personal use. A commercial license for business use is only $25. This is one of the best programs of this type that I’ve seen.

Rating: 5.0
Operating System: Windows 2000/XP/2003
License: Commercial
Price: Free for personal use ($25 for business use)
Version: 2.2
Web Site: http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx
See Screenshots

[tags]What’s Running, Task Manager, Startup Programs, Windows Services, Windows Freeware[/tags]