Sysinternals Tools Updated: ProcMon 3.0 released

29Mar/120

Sysinternals Tools Updated: ProcMon 3.0 released

The famous sysinternals tools have been updated: AccessChk v 5.03, Autoruns & Autorunsc v 11.22, ProcMon v 3.0, PsList v 1.3, where ProcMon v 3.0 is the cool one.

Process Monitor v3.0: This update to Process Monitor, a real-time file, registry, process and network monitor, adds bookmark support so that you can flag specific lines in a trace for easy reference later. Shortcut keys enable you to move quickly between bookmarks and you can even add bookmarks to existing trace files. You can also convert a highlight filter to an include filter and shortcut keys move between highlighted lines. Finally, process Monitor now records process environment variables and current working directory for process create events (thanks to Dmitri Davydok for his contribution) and displays the names of new Windows 8 file system control codes.

Accesschk v5.03: The -l switch, which has AccessChk show detailed security descriptor information, now reports the object owner as well as security descriptor flags.

Autoruns v11.22: This release of Autoruns fixes a bug in the XML output structure, jump-to-folder functionality for scheduled task entries, and fixes a buffer overflow triggered by very long registry paths.

Pslist v1.3: This release fixes a rounding bug that caused Pslist to report lower than actual CPU utilization when used with the -s option.

Overview of Process Monitor Capabilities

Process Monitor includes powerful monitoring and filtering capabilities, including:

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.