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WinTasks 4 Professional (Also available,
WinTasks 4 Standard)
Commercial program
Leading Interactive
Some of the best utility programs are
the ones you didn't know you needed until you installed them. WinTasks
4 Professional is one of those.
Sure, Windows XP has its Task Manager,
which will give you a view of the applications and processes that are
running and an indication of the CPU load. We found that WinTasks
goes well beyond the simple tool Task Manager is. It offers a wealth
of useful features that I found myself using regularly.
The main part of the program shows you
every process in memory, including those which are normally hidden from
view. This can include processes that Windows itself starts up,
and also other interesting things like 'spy programs' that programs you
think you exited or chose not to run at startup are running behind your
back.
I mention this because the first thing
I noticed when I started using WinTasks was that there was this one pesky
little program called "Real Player Snooper" that didn't show up on Task
Manager and was not something I chose to run on startup. I even
tried using the (very convenient) built-in WinTasks utility for controlling
and cleaning up the programs which run at startup (you'd be amazed at
how much junk can get loaded that you don't want loaded).
What this little 'snooper' was snooping
on is beyond me, but as many times as I tried to get rid of it, the darn
thing kept coming back until I finally un-installed Real One Player and
reverted to an older version.
I don't know about you, but I have a
philosophical problem with companies installing software on my computer
that I can't get rid of and which sits there reporting back to the mother
ship whenever I boot up my machine. Discovering this alone was well
worth getting WinTasks. If you have any need for complete computer
security, you need this software.
There is a lot of other information at
your fingertips on the main screen. You can see, at a glance, how
much memory each process is using; how much CPU load it is putting on
the system; how many threads are in use; when it started running; and
what its priority is. That last one can be a good one to know.
Windows XP (NT & 2000) allow each process
to set a priority level over other processes. The higher the priority,
the more CPU cycles it gets. Some programs have a nasty habit of
grabbing as much CPU as they can, when it isn't really necessary, and
they bog down your system to the point where it is difficult to do your
other work.
To the rescue comes WinTasks. It
not only shows you what is consuming all your CPU cycles, it shows you
the priority of the task and it allows you (with a few exceptions) to
make changes to the priority. So, you can reduce the priority of,
say, your virus scanner (often a big CPU hog) to Low and increase other
applications which are more timing-critical (like multimedia apps) to
High or even Realtime. Nice feature! Just so you don't fiddle
with any of the core parts of the operating system, WinTasks will prevent
you from modifying any of Windows' system processes.
You can look at processes and see what
modules are being used by it. You can open it up and see all the
hidden windows it has created. It gives you nice descriptions of
processes it's familiar with (ever wonder what csrss.exe actually does?)
and you can add your own comments about processes and save them.
WinTasks also keeps statistical data
for you automatically. It keeps a running log of every program that
starts or stops from the time it loads at startup. You can see if
any 'funny' programs are running in the middle of the night when you aren't
looking and you can also confirm that programs like defrag, which are
run by the task scheduler, are being run as scheduled.
More statistical information is kept
for each running process. You can take a peek at the memory and
CPU usage graphs for up to the last 24 hours. Very useful in tracking
down system problems and memory leaks!
System administrators can use the built-in
scripting engine to set up automatic fine-tuning of their systems, based
on the information obtained from WinTasks.
I really could go on for pages describing
every feature of this program. I keep finding new uses for it every
day. I'm willing to bet that you will find it as useful as we have
found it, whether you are a IT professional who needs a tool to monitor
and diagnose system problems and security risks or a Power User who wants
total control over their system.
We give it 5-Weenies, our highest rating.
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