#WINDOWS 7 PROCESS EXPLORER HOW TO#
#WINDOWS 7 PROCESS EXPLORER FULL#
#WINDOWS 7 PROCESS EXPLORER WINDOWS 7#

This shouldn’t be completely unfamiliar if you’ve used the Details tab in Task Manager (aka the Processes tab in Windows XP and earlier).

Where are all those 'svchost.exe' processes? Task Manager hides a lot from you, and when you're investigating system activity, this limited view of what's going on is to be avoided.In the top half of the main window, you’ll see a list of processes.

#WINDOWS 7 PROCESS EXPLORER FULL#

Task Manager sorts full applications, underlying system processes and services into three tabs, but it doesn't show you everything. In Windows 7, it's started by pressing ++, then selecting it from the menu. Traditionally, processes, services and applications are viewed using Task Manager.

#WINDOWS 7 PROCESS EXPLORER WINDOWS 7#

This process runs the Windows 7 desktop and is the mother process for all your running applications, including those that sit in the system tray of the task bar, ready for use. It's even used by Windows 7's Libraries feature.Īnother vital top-level process is 'explorer.exe'. Its index is used when you type in the name of a file in the Start Menu search box and when you search for files in Explorer. It simply indexes all your files for use in Windows Search. When the hard disk light stays lit for prolonged periods of time, it's normal to worry about what's going on, but it's usually down to this benign and useful part of Windows 7. These include the service portion of your anti-malware products, updaters for third-party products and Windows 7, and services for power management and the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant Manager.Īnother process that causes confusion and fear in the minds of users is the innocent 'Search Indexer.exe'. 'Services.exe' also starts many other service processes that run directly from EXE files. These are apportioned between many instances of 'svchost.exe' for efficiency, speed and system resilience.

The reason there are so many instances of 'svchost.exe' is that it acts as a launcher for processes that run from DLLs rather than EXE files. If this happens, you'll need to reboot and may lose data or even corrupt your hard disk. However, it's normal to have many instances running in parallel, and killing them can harm the running OS.

#WINDOWS 7 PROCESS EXPLORER HOW TO#

Search for the term and you'll find many forum posts from worried users asking if their PC has been taken over by malware and asking how to kill all those multiple processes. exe' starts multiple instances of a process called 'svchost.exe'. However, there's often a degree of confusion that creeps into the user's mind over this seemingly simple task. One such process is called 'wininit', the direct descendent (the process it personally starts running) of which is called 'services.exe'.Īs you might expect, it's the job of this process to spawn child processes that run as independent services in the background. In Windows 7, there are usually three or four top-level processes. This in turn loads and runs the Windows 7 kernel image, which then begins unpacking the other processes it needs help it create all the processes that constitute the OS.Īll modern operating systems have a hierarchy of processes. After you power up the PC and it passes its self-tests, the BIOS loads the master boot record from the primary hard disk partition and runs it.

Windows 7 process explorer