Windows 7: Review Running Processes

Windows Security Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Windows 7: Review Running Processes

This section provides a tutorial example on how to review all processes that are currently running on a Windows 7 system.

You should also review all processes that are currently running on the Windows 7 system and investigate any processes that are strange to us.

1. Click the "Start" button and enter in "taskmgr" in the "Search programs and files" input field. You will see the "Windows Task Manager" screen showing up.

2. Click "Processes". You will see a list of all processes that are currently running on the Windows 7 system. If you see any process name that you are not familiar with, then it is a possible spyware, adware or some program that you never need it. Search Internet to confirm that program is not related Windows system or any hardware functions. If confirmed, you should investigate why this process is running and how to prevent it to run again.

For example, on my Windows 7 system, I see "soffice.bin" currently running. "soffice.bin" seems to be related to OpenOffice 3.2 tools based on the description displayed on Task Manager. But I am not running any OpenOffice at this moment. So I need to investigate to see if it is introduced from a startup program or from a background service.

3. Check the list of startup programs again using "System Configuration" tool described in the previous tutorial. I saw the following entry:

OpenOffice.org 3.2 | Unknown
   | "C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 3\program\quickstart.exe"

4. Searching Internet, I learned that this startup program quickstart.exe launches 2 processes, soffice.bin and soffice.exe, and displays a task bar icon helping you to start an OpenOffice tool quickly.