Process Monitor v1.26

Process Monitor v1.26

By Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell

Published: November 5, 2007

Introduction

Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more. Its uniquely powerful features will make Process Monitor a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

Process Monitor runs on Windows 2000 SP4 with Update Rollup 1, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista as well as x64 versions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Vista.

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Process Monitor Enhancements over Filemon and Regmon

Process Monitor's user interface and options are similar to those of Filemon and Regmon, but it was written from the ground up and includes numerous significant enhancements, such as:

• Monitoring of process and thread startup and exit, including exit status codes
• Monitoring of image (DLL and kernel-mode device driver) loads
• More data captured for operation input and output parameters
• Non-destructive filters allow you to set filters without losing data
• Capture of thread stacks for each operation make it possible in many cases to identify the root cause of an operation
• Reliable capture of process details, including image path, command line, user and session ID
• Configurable and moveable columns for any event property
• Filters can be set for any data field, including fields not configured as columns
• Advanced logging architecture scales to tens of millions of captured events and gigabytes of log data
• Process tree tool shows relationship of all processes referenced in a trace
• Native log format preserves all data for loading in a different Process Monitor instance
• Process tooltip for easy viewing of process image information
• Detail tooltip allows convenient access to formatted data that doesn't fit in the column
• Cancellable search
• Boot time logging of all operations

The best way to become familiar with Process Monitor's features is to read through the help file and then visit each of its menu items and options on a live system.

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Screenshots

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Installation

Simply run Process Monitor (procmon.exe).

The help file describes Process Monitor operation and usage. If you have problems or questions, please visit the Sysinternals Process Monitor Forum.

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Related Items

Here are some other process and system monitoring utilities and information available at Sysinternals:

• TechNet On-Demand Webcast: Advanced Windows Troubleshooting with Sysinternals Process Monitor - Mark gives a tutorial on some of the many powerful Process Monitor features and shows you how to leverage them to troubleshoot common application and system problems.
• FileMon - a file access monitor
• RegMon - a Registry monitor
• PortMon - a serial and parallel port monitor
• Process Explorer - a process and thread monitor
• DiskMon - a hard disk monitor
• DebugView - a debug output monitor

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