How to Identify Programs Running on your Computer

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How to Identify Programs Running on your Computer

When trying to track down a computer performance problem, press <ctrl> <alt> <del> and bring up the Windows Task Manager to view the currently running processes. The viewer in Windows XP and 2000 shows running processes and can help track down spyware or adware which is eating up performance. Unfortunately, many programs use cryptic file names, so you may get something in the viewer such as csrss.exe or vsmon.exe. How do you find out what they do?

The easiest way is to just plug the file name into Google (or your favorite search engine). What you will usually find is a listing from LIUtilities, a security company with a huge library of process executables.  You can also try these websites:

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