WinTasks 5 Pro Review

Introduction and Setup

Virus scanners and Firewall software (or a dedicated hardware firewall) are an essential part of everybody`s PC security. Running silently in the background, they protect your system from being compromised. However, these two programs will not help against Spyware or other undesirable processes - another program must fill that gap. WinTasks 5 Pro is one that falls into this category.

After the fast installation WinTasks 5 is already operational. After starting the program the clear and simple user interface impresses immediately - all important buttons and functions are self-describing. I didn`t notice any foreign language support during the installer however, and there don't seem to be any language options, perhaps this will be addressed in a later version.

A manual is also provided, although it`s unlikely you`ll ever look at it as the interface is so intuitive. It does have a useful chapter dedicated to the programming/scripting tools though. The system requirements are as follows, unless you're running a Mac or Linux you should be fine:

• Intel or AMD compatible CPU 400 MHz
• 32 MB RAM
• CD-ROM Drive
• 5 MB Free Disk Space
• Windows 98/Me/2000 or XP

WinTasks 5 Pro: Program Usage in Detail:

The main program screen shows tons of information in a single window - much more than the standard Windows Task Manager. The process` names are shown, the CPU, memory use and priority, also the process` Executable name (.exe) plus starting time are indicated. Before the processes are two symbols, which show the priority and the type of process. A red symbol indicates system processes - protected against tinkering with, and a black symbol for normal processes, which can be merrily terminated or otherwise messed with to your heart`s content.

Colour-coding the processes in this way is a very useful feature, and prevents the chaos that can ensue from killing off a critical process. In the lower half the process description is given, which gives information about the selected program. WinTasks provides data on a huge number of programs, written in a concise and user friendly way.

The main WinTasks screen with eMule`s process details

Clicking on the emule.exe process gives the for example following information: "emule.exe is the main executable for the eMule application. eMule is one of the biggest and most reliable peer-to-peer file sharing clients. It is an open source project." If you want you can even submit your own note about the program to the developers.

I was impressed by the number of software programs it has information on - it only lacked data on a few of the programs I run - esoteric and ancient programs at that. If you come across the process that WinTasks doesn't have information on, there is an option that submits the process information to the developers to update their records.