Everyone who needs to troubleshoot a problem with a crashing or slow PC needs to know about Process Explorer. Think of it as a hugely more powerful version of the Windows Task Manager. It shows you what all the programs, services and processes are doing on your computer, so that you can find the source of a problem. It even lets you find out which program has a particular file open, so you can track down problems where Windows is saying that a file can't be deleted because it's open in another process.

Process Explorer is a 1.8 MB download and it's free. A recent update earlier this month has added some new features, so if you're not already a user of this utility it's a good time to try it. It's portable too, so it's easy to get started once you've downloaded it. And it's malware-free according to VirusTotal and Web of Trust.  Read More