mirror-processhacker/2.x/trunk

Process Hacker is a powerful free and open source process viewer.



== Getting started ==



Simply run ProcessHacker.exe to start Process Hacker. There are two 

versions, 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64). If you are not sure which 

version to use, open Control Panel > System and check the "System 

type". You cannot run the 32-bit version of Process Hacker on a 

64-bit system and expect it to work correctly, unlike other programs.



== System requirements ==



Windows XP SP2 or higher, 32-bit or 64-bit.



== Settings ==



If you are running Process Hacker from a USB drive, you may want to 

save Process Hacker's settings there as well. To do this, create a 

blank file named "ProcessHacker.exe.settings.xml" in the same 

directory as ProcessHacker.exe. You can do this using Windows Explorer:



1. Make sure "Hide extensions for known file types" is unticked in 

   Tools > Folder options > View.

2. Right-click in the folder and choose New > Text Document.

3. Rename the file to ProcessHacker.exe.settings.xml (delete the ".txt" 

   extension).



== Plugins ==



To use plugins, follow these steps:



1. Create a directory called "plugins" in the same directory as 

   ProcessHacker.exe.

2. Copy the plugin DLL files into the "plugins" directory.

3. Open Process Hacker and make sure "Enable plugins" in Options 

   is ticked.

4. Restart Process Hacker if necessary.



Plugins can be configured from Hacker > Plugins.



If you experience any crashes involving plugins, make sure they 

are up to date.



The ExtendedTools plugin is only available for Windows Vista and 

above. Disk and Network information provided by this plugin is 

only available when running Process Hacker with administrative 

rights.



== KProcessHacker ==



NOTE: The driver has been very generously signed by the 

ReactOS Foundation (http://www.reactos.org).



Process Hacker uses a kernel-mode driver, KProcessHacker, to 

assist with certain functionality. This includes:



* Bypassing security software and rootkits in limited ways

* More powerful process and thread termination (*)

* Setting DEP status of processes

* Capturing kernel-mode stack traces

* More efficiently enumerating process handles

* Retrieving names for file handles

* Retrieving names for EtwRegistration objects (*)

* Setting handle attributes



The features marked with an asterisk (*) currently rely on 

kernel version-dependent data embedded into the driver. In the event 

that there is a new major release of Windows (e.g. new version or 

service pack) and the driver has not yet been updated for that version, 

the aforementioned features will not work.



Certain features such as modifying process protection are disabled 

in the released driver binary due to legal reasons. You can enable 

them by building KProcessHacker with the "dirty" configuration.