General Options

Command-Line Usage: Process Explorer takes two options that modify its behavior:

Always on Top: Choose this option to have Process Explorer's window remain above other windows.

Replace Task Manager: Select the Replace Task Manager entry under the Options menu to have Process Explorer execute instead of Task Manager when you launch Task Manager. Note that this is a global setting that affects all users regardless of how they start Task Manager.

Hide When Minimized: check this item in the Options menu to have Process Explorer run in the tray as a small graph reflecting current CPU usage when you minimize it. If CPU usage is under 70% the meter shows in green; if its between 70% and 90% it shows in yellow; if its above 90% it shows in red. The CPU usage graph updates at the currently defined refresh interval. If you want Process Explorer to start in the tray then specify the /t option as its command-line argument. Single-clicking on Process Explorer's tray icon restores the window and brings it to the foreground, regardless of whether its minimized in the tray or not.

Allow Only One Instance: check this to prevent multiple instances of Process Explorer to run simultaneously.

Confirm Kill: uncheck this if you do not want Process Explorer to prompt you for confirmation before terminating a process you've directed it to kill.

CPU History in Tray: this option toggles Process Explorer's tray icon between a standard chart representation of the current CPU usage and a miniature version of the CPU history graph.

Verify Image Signatures: if this is checked then images corresponding to processes are checked for trusted signatures automatically when you view a process properties and the result is shown next to the company field in the process properties dialog. "(Verified)" next a company name means the file is signed by a trusted root certificate authority and "(Unable to Verify)" means the file is either unsigned or signed by an untrusted authority. Uncheck this option to speed performance when viewing process image properties.

Configure Symbols: on Windows NT and higher, if you want Process Explorer to resolve addresses for thread start addresses in the threads tab of the process properties dialog and the thread stack window then configure symbols by first downloading the Debugging Tools for Windows package from Microsoft's web site and installing it in its default directory. Open the Configure Symbols dialog and specify the path to the dbghelp.dll that's in the Debugging Tools directory and have the symbol engine download symbols on demand from Microsoft to a directory on your disk by entering a symbol server string for the symbol path. For example, to have symbols download to the c:\symbols directory you would enter this string:

srv*c:\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

Difference Highlight Duration: this dialog allows you to configure the duration of time that new processes show in green and ones that have exited show in red. The default is one second. You can change the highlighting colors by editing them in the Configure Highlighting dialog that you open in the Options menu.