Today we are going to have a look at a software package WinTasks 5 Professional from LIUtilities. What is WinTasks 5 and what can it do for me? Well off the top of my head I would say it's a tool to control the services that are running silently in the background of your PC's operating system.

Systems requirements

Essentially, Win Tasks 5 Professional is a beefed up version of Windows Task Manager. At first glance I was a little dubious as to how much value this piece of software may truly have, but after exploring it further I believe it to be a very useful program.

1. low
2. below normal
3. normal
4. above normal
5. high
6. real-time

Since the levels below normal and above normal are supported only by Windows 2000 and Windows XP they are not included in WinTasks. A process can be divided into a number of sub activities called threads. Each process has at least one main thread. Additional threads can be used, to carry out complicated operations in the background, without blocking the program’s user interface. Below is a view of the main program window and it is followed by a brief description of what the main options are.

1. Process icons: icon's that indicate the priority of the process, there are 4 priority icons to choose from
2. displays weather the process is important in concern to the operation of you operating system. Red dictates high level of imposrtance and black represent a standard or normal level of importance. To help increase system security, you can't stop critical system processes in Windows NT/2000/XP
3. Process name: shows the name of the process. The name is most often the programs executable. If you double click on a selected process you are given the option to rename the process to something you may feel is more informative or relevent. To restore the original name, simply click-right on the process and select ”Reset process name”
4. Executable: shows where the program is located and the complete search path for the program is displayed. Some system processes do not display the path
5. Priority: shows the priority level for a process
6. Threads: shows the number of threads per process (not supported in Windows NT)
7. CPU Usage: shows the process’s use of the CPU in percent
8. MEM Usage: shows how much of the internal memory the process is using unless you are using Win 98
9. Started: shows when a process was initiated
10. Stop process: is used to stop one or more of the selected processes. If you have the feature Ask before terminate selected in the settings menu, a screen displaying a warning is given before the process is stopped. Otherwise the process is stopped immediately
11. Increase priority: is used to increase the priority (priority level) for all selected processes
12. Decrease priority: is used to decrease the priority (priority level) for all selected processes
13. Block: Will prevent a specific service from being run
14. Refresh: refreshes the list of active processes in the main window
15. Create a list of programs
16. Start: Used to start a new process
17. Add new program to the list
18. Update: gets the most recent updates through this online update feature
19. Print: used to print or save the contents displayed in the main window
20. Search: This is used to search for things like processes, dll's or programs that are set to autostart
21. This is used to change your search criteria

The program’s user interface is simple and well laid out:

If you click on one of the processes then a small section in the bottom left of the window tells you exactly what it does (as shown below). This works for all the standard Windows processes along with those that have been added to the database. You are even able to add notes for future reference.

The “Autostart” section tells you what programs were started up with the computer - it also allows you to disable them or to add more to the startup procedure. It’s a very handy tool if you want to speed up the amount of time it takes for your computer to start up or if you want something there and ready to go as soon as the computer is turned on and it’s substantially easier than the windows method, MSConfig.

As you can see from the above screenshot, there are quite a few programs on my laptop I could disable to speed up startup: MsnMsgr.Exe, qttask.exe and iTunesHelper.exe.

The title “Process Lib” brings up the above section - it’s simply the little display in the bottom left corner of the main window in a separate pop-up window and it tells you exactly what an individual process does. The search feature then allows you to find any process by using the name or the executable to search through an extensive database. This can come in very handy when searching for potential viruses/trojans/spyware or adware. If there is a process that is unknown to the program you can let the company know and they will sort out what it is and extend the database further to include it.

Clicking on the “Block List” tab brings up the above window, from here you can block certain processes and you can ‘allow’ only certain processes too. By adding a process to the block list you can make sure that it will not run again without your permission. If high security is required then you can add to the ‘Allow List’ the selected processes that you want to run on your computer. This allows you to control exactly what is going on within your computer system and will stop current security threats and potential future threats.

The tab called “Windows” allows you to see all of the windows that the selected process controls. The ‘Visible’ column lets you know whether a window is seen or hidden within Windows, it also allows you to reveal the hidden windows and to hide the visible windows. The ‘State’ Column lets you know if a window is minimized, normal or maximized within Windows, the three buttons at the top (‘Max’, ‘Norm’ and ‘Min’) let you control those states. The ‘Close’ Tab allows you to close all of the windows that are related to the specific process or just the ones that you select.

The “Modules” section of the program allows you to view all of the DLL files (Dynamic Link Library files) which are associated with a selected process. A DLL in Windows is a program part that is dynamically linked to a program during its execution. DLLs can be used to share program code across a variety of programs. This feature can come in very handy for someone who is involved in programming and debugging, it allows them to see exactly what is being used and also where it is located within Windows.

The “Stats” section, as with Windows’ task manager, shows CPU usage. On top of this, you can select a process and it will show you the CPU usage for that individual program (the green line) as well as the overall CPU usage (blue). It also displays the system memory usage both generally (blue) and for the individual processes (green). You can even opt for it to display various lengths of time gone by: 1 minute, 10 minutes, 2 hours and 24 hours. If you move your mouse over one of the graphs then it displays the time and the relevant usage values at that time:

There is a built-in scripting language included with Wintasks, controllable through the “Scripts” tab. It appears to be very close to the VB (Visual Basic) programming language. From the user manual: “It is possible, for instance, to allow WinTasks to automatically increase the priority level of the defragmentation program, stop all processes using more than 70% of the memory or stop the web browser when visiting a certain site.”

So the scripting will allow you to set WinTasks to kick in a certain task when something occurs within the computer, reduce the CPU load when it gets too high and even stop access to websites. The scripting language is covered in far more depth in the user manual, it explains what language is available and what it does.

Whilst the program is running, WinTasks keeps a track of all processes, modules and window actions that have occurred. You can view all of the activity through the “Logs” tab. This section will also show you when the activity occurred. The most prominent use for this feature will be to detect the presence of Viruses and Trojans, yet in can be used by those who simply wish to monitor all activity on their computer.

Conclusion

WinTasks 5 Professional is a very easy to use program with a variety of useful features and a simple and pleasing user interface. Its features are great for the average user, who simply wants to speed up and monitor the activity on their computer, all the way up to professional users including Programmers and Debuggers. Perfect for anyone who wants complete control over the operating system and what it does.

It is definitely tailored more towards the power/professional user, but I believe that the average user could still get plenty out of this program. The ability to see what’s going on behind the scenes within windows is a very handy feature, but is again more geared more towards the power user.

I think that this program is a keeper and I will be using it for a while to come. I have it configured so that it starts up with windows and now it blocks a few of the startup processes that I don’t want or need. The program uses a very small amount of memory so you don’t have to worry about it taking up valuable resources.

Thanks go to LI Utilities for supplying this piece of software for review.

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