Have you ever opened up Windows Task Manager and been overwhelmed by all the programs running and the cryptic names that identify them? I have often spent hours online researching each and every task to make sure it is a program that I want running on my computer. WinTasks Pro 5 can greatly reduce the amount of time identifying the programs by bringing the information to you. WinTasks Pro 5 is a program whose main use is to control Windows processes with more detail and customization than Task Manager.

Features

• Real-time process information – Stay in control – Know what processes are running on your PC!
• Process descriptions – You don’t have to tolerate security threats and spyware any longer – stop them now!
• Automatic updates – Keep WinTasks and the built-in process library up to date by using our automatic update feature.
• Searchable process library – WinTasks now lets you search the entire process library for any process including the ones not currently running on your system.
• Instant termination of any process – Protect your personal privacy by removing Trojans, spyware, and any other unwanted programs.
• Activity logging – Hackers don’t have a prayer – monitor your system 24×7 to make sure they are not using your computer for illegal activities.
• Built-in scripting language – WinTasks puts the power in your lap – create your own scripts to monitor and control all running processes.
• Block- and Allow-lists – With the new blocking feature, WinTasks makes it extremely easy to block any unwanted process. For maximum security the allow list gives you the option to choose exactly which processes are allowed to run on your system.

Design

When you start WinTasks you will see a window that is slightly similar to Task Manager, you will first notice that there are a lot more buttons and more details than Task Manager. Fortunately you do have a certain level of control over the toolbars. You can turn them on or off, unfortunately you cannot choose which buttons are shown on each toolbar, at least I couldn’t figure it out. Having all these buttons is nice for getting quick access to all the features, but it can quickly become overwhelming for a new user as the try and sort out which buttons they need and which ones they don’t. My biggest complaint is the clunky interface. If it were possible to choose which buttons where visible then this would clean up the interface quite a bit.

Below the buttons you will see a list of all the currently running processes and detailed information about each process, unlike Task Manager, WinTasks will even show you the hidden processes. Each process shows the name, the path to the executable that the process is running, process priority, the number of threads under the process, the CPU usage by the process, the amount of memory taken up by the process, and the time and date the process was started. All of these columns can be turned on or off using the view menu in the main menu.

Below the process list are two boxes. The one on the left displays some additional details about the currently selected process. There are also three links that you can click, “View Details”, “Submit Comments” and “Report Missing Description”. “View Details” will offer a little more information which may be helpful. This new information includes the author of the program, what other program it is part of, security risk and several keywords that can be used to search by. You will see several other buttons on this window also. “Check for Updates” will go out to the WinTasks website and look for an update to the program and also an update to the process library which holds all the information about each process. “Submit Comments” will open up your default email program and enter some information about the process and let you submit comments to the manufacturer so they can use it to make the program better. “Report Missing Description” is exactly the same. It opens up an email and lets you submit it to the manufacturer. The box on the right lets you enter your own comments about each process. These comments are saved so that each time you select the process you can see them.

As I said before there are a ton of buttons across the top, too many to go into, so I will talk about a couple that interested me. The First on is the “Autostart” button. This brings up a small box with a list of processes. These processes are listed in the registry so they will start when you boot up your computer. This window also gives you the ability to Enable, Disable, Add and Delete any of the listed processes. The “Stats” button opens up a small window with a CPU and Memory usage graph in it which is very similar to the Task Manager graphs. The WinTasks graph does give you more options. There are four buttons across the top that will let you adjust the scale. It ranges from 1 min. to 24 hr. You are also able to see a graph for individual processes. These graphs will display on the same screen in a different color. Personally, I like the look of the Task Manager graphs better because they are not so blocky. When you move your mouse over the graphs it gives you the exact time that it recorded that moment at. Another button that you might find use for is the “Scripts” button. This may possibly be WinTasks most powerful feature. With this box you are able to define different tasks that you want to occur when things happen. For example, the following image shows a script that will open the calculator when you start notepad and keep it open. It will also close the calculator when you close notepad. There is a whole scripting language that is documented in the manual. It gives you a whole new way to customize your computer.

Conclusion

WinTasks Pro 5 is a very handy program and it can easily save you hours of time researching each of your processes. I did find one annoying problem with the WinTasks upgrade process. When I tried to install an updated version, it made me uninstall the one I had, before it would install the upgrade. If they fixed this then that would help make upgrading less of a pain. Also to help system administrators it would be nice if there were some remote monitoring features. This would save the time of going around to every computer on the network to view the tasks. But for a retail price of $49.95, this is really a great program and you get a ton of useful features. If you cannot afford that price then you can still research your processes by using their website www.processlibrary.com for free. This website runs on the same database so you will get the same process information, but you do loose out on the other features in WinTasks Pro 5 like scripting and logging.

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