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Summary: There may be many programs running on your machine. It's not always obvious exactly what they are or why they're running. We'll look for some clues. What's this program running on my machine? As you use your Windows machine there may be many programs running - some of which you can see and some of which are running in the background. In Windows 95, 98 and Me, pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL will present you with a list of the programs running on your machine. On Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003, running task manager (right click on the clock or any open space on the task bar and select Task Manager) and selecting the Processes tab will show you that list. It's probably a longer list than you expected. So what are all those programs running on your machine? • Some will be fairly obvious based on their name. For example a program called "msnmsngr" is MSN Messenger, the MSN Instant messaging program. "CMD" is the "Command Prompt". But CSRSS? LSASS? SVCHOST? For these and many of the others we don't immediately recognize we need to look a little deeper. One of the tools I use the most is Process Explorer (procexp) by the folks out at Sysinternals.com. Think of it as task manager on steroids. Just running procexp will answer the question for a number of programs running on your machine. Procexp will list them much like task manager did except with much more available information including a description if there is one. The columns available to be displayed in procexp are extensive - one that I've added to my default display is "Command Line". Much like a previous article about What's This DLL? simply knowing where the program was loaded from on disk will often tell us what application it is a part of. For example it didn't dawn on me what "ypager" was until I saw that it had been loaded from "\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger". That made it fairly clear that it's Yahoo's instant messaging client. "Just running procexp will answer the question for a number of programs running on your machine."
If it's not obvious from the description or the command line then my next step, again much like the DLL search, is Google. For example search on "LSASS.EXE" provided me with a site that told me it was the "The Windows Local Security Authority Server Process" the component of windows that handles local security related requests. In other words, a key component of the operating system itself. I also recommend Microsoft's Support Site. The problem with both it and Google is simply that there are often a lot of unhelpful entries to wade through. LSASS, for example, returns a plethora of articles on the Microsoft Support site dealing with specific issues relating to LSASS but not a clear definition of what it is. Nonetheless, both can be valuable aids if you can sort the wheat from the chaff. Most of programs can be identified by the steps above, at least to the point of understanding what application they belong to or whether they are part of the operating system. One program, "svchost", usually has multiple copies running at the same time on Windows NT, XP, 2000, and 2003. Labeled only as "Generic Host Process", it deserves a little more attention that I'll save for a separate article. Related:
• Recent Comments
I would use Process Explorer, referred to in the article, to see if you can identify which of the processes might be titled "Sample". Posted by: Leo at June 21, 2006 09:02 PMI WANT TO END SOME OF THE PROCESSES RUNNING ON MY COMPUTER BECAUSE THEY ARE MAKING MY COMPUTER SLOWER... HOW DO I KNOW WHICH ONES NOT TO END, WHICH ONES ARE VERY IMPORTANT, AND WHICH ONES I CAN END??? Posted by: Rosland at July 24, 2006 09:55 AMthank you very much for solving my problems with my pc. you have a wonderful site. thank you again Posted by: laverne hargett at September 25, 2006 12:04 AMHello. I keep getting this little task pop-up thing with a little white box with a blue horrizontal line across the top in my task bar. The whole thing just randomly pops up and then disappears after a few seconds---it's too fast for me to click on it to see what it is. It also disrupts my screen saver. I turned my computer off and I had that "end now" box that came up before I could shutdown. Apparently there were two programs running I had no idea about: __PIAWIA and Windows Forums Parking Windows. Are these viruses? How do I get rid of them? Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you! Posted by: christi at February 20, 2007 02:38 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- A couple of ideas: http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_read_a_message_that_flies_by_too_quickly_on_my_screen.html and http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_track_what_programs_come_and_go_on_my_machine.html And of course make sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs both Leo iD8DBQFF3eY3CMEe9B/8oqERAjQzAJ0bP/I6xzarbDi61CUwq8gHmeeBRgCeNbSV What is the program running in the background? On the task bar there is a task w/ a box in it. When I click on the task nothing happens. Before I was able to log off the computer and it would disappear but now it constantly stays on the screen. Can it be a virus? Posted by: Jenny d at August 4, 2007 01:49 AMhow come my computer got lagier the next day and what antivirus do you recemend that i should use My wife downloaded two screen savers, :( When we try to delete them we get a message telling us that another program or person is using them. I have tried several online Virus/spyware, etc and although they found and cleaned a few things it did not fix this one and we still can't get rid of them. I tried to look them up in the task mgr and I see no listing or anything out of the normal. Can you help???? Posted by: Dale Black at February 24, 2008 07:03 PMI even log off and progam is runnig Posted by: babe at March 30, 2008 09:43 AMWhy when I go to shut down my pc does this pop up Post a comment on "What's this program running on my machine?":
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