There is the standard way of managing services which most people use because it’s well-known and fairly easy. This involves going into Administrative controls or going into the control panel, hunting down the Services utility and doing what you need to do.

If you want to manage the services that are running on a different computer or server on your network, you need to go to computer management, connect to the remote machine, and then manage those services.

There’s nothing at all wrong with taking this approach – in fact system administrators everywhere use these standard Windows utilities to manage the infrastructure across the enterprise. But, what if you could monitor, stop and start services by typing in a single line at the command prompt?

Controlling Services From the Command Line

You may need to stop services running in a client computer so that you can reinstall some software. Or maybe you need to restart services that are running on a server because some software isn’t working properly.

Up until now, you’ve probably managed services on client machines running on your network using the standard services utility. This is the Services tool that you launch in the Administrative Tools section of the control panel.

In Admin Tools, you can either go directly to the Services tool, or open up computer management if you want to access a different computer on your network.

To access a different computer, just click action, “Connect to Another Computer” and then type the network name of the computer.

Then you can open up the services tool.

An Easier Way To Manage Services

So anyway, that’s the long way. The shorter and faster way is to use the command “SC”.

You’re probably familiar with the NET command. The SC command is nearly identical to NET, except that it can also create a service, in addition to monitoring, stopping and starting them. Best of all, you can issue the SC command against other computers over the network (assuming you have admin rights).

Doing an SC query against a computer will give you all of the installed services and whether they are running. When you issue the command “SC \\**computer-name** query |more” – you’ll get an output as shown here.

As you can see, this gives you the state of the service, the type of service and other parameters. For the sake of our exercises here, we’re going to pay attention to just the state of the services.

If you want to list only the services that are currently not running (stopped), then you would issue the command, “SC \\**computer-name** query state= “inactive” |more”

The |more part of the command makes the output pause on each screen so that you can scroll.

As you can see, those services are all stopped. Now, instead of having to dig through all of those services, if you know the name of the service, you can just issue the command “SC \\**computer-name** query **service-name**”

That will report back with the current status of just that service and nothing else. To remotely stop a service, all you have to do is issue the stop command, “SC \\**computer-name** stop **service-name**”

The output will show a state of “STOP-PENDING”, but after a few moments, if you query that service again, you’ll see that it is no longer running. You can start it by issuing the same command, but replacing “stop” with “start”.

Creating A Script To Query, Stop Or Start Any Service

Okay, so now that you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to write a script that will stop any service that you want without the need to remember the exact command string. We can do this by writing a trusty Windows Script, as follows.

<script type="text/javascript" language="VBScript">// <![CDATA[
   Option Explicit On Error Resume Next Dim WshShell Dim strInput Dim strComputer Dim x Dim blnGetList Dim strStopStart set WshShell=CreateObject("WScript.Shell") x=0 strComputer = InputBox("Enter the computer or server name:") Do while x=0    'Query User for Service to check    strInput = InputBox("Enter the service name or DONE:")    If strInput = "DONE" or strInput = "done" then 	x=1    Else 	strStopStart = MsgBox("Stop Service? Yes-Stop, No-Start", VBYesNo, "Stop Request")        'Send commands 	IF strStopStart = vbYes then       	    WshShell.run "cmd.exe"             WScript.Sleep 1000             WshShell.SendKeys "sc \\" &#038; strComputer &#038; " stop " &#038; strInput &#038; " >> c:\temp\results.txt"
            WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}")
            WScript.Sleep 1000
            WshShell.SendKeys "exit"
            WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}")
 
         Else
 
      	    WshShell.run "cmd.exe"
            WScript.Sleep 1000
 
            WshShell.SendKeys "sc \\" &#038; strComputer &#038; " start " &#038; strInput &#038; " >> c:\temp\results.txt"
            WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}")
            WScript.Sleep 1000
            WshShell.SendKeys "exit"
            WshShell.SendKeys ("{Enter}")
	 End If 
 
  End If
 
Loop
 
WScript.Quit
// ]]></script>

When you run this script, it’ll ask you for the name of the service that you want to stop or start.

And then whether you want to stop or start the service.

Using the “>> c:\temp\results.txt” command, it outputs the stop and start results and errors to a text file that you can use to see whether the command worked.

When I ran the script above, I followed it up with a quick query of the service before and after running the script.

As you can see, the service I stopped – helpsvc – was running. I ran the Windows Script to stop it, queried it, and it was stopped.

If you wanted to get really fancy, you could add a section to the script that outputted all of the currently installed services on the PC to a text file that you could review before deciding which service to stop or start. The command for that would be “sc \\” & strComputer & ” query > c:\temp\services.txt”.

As you can see, the SC command can be a pretty powerful and efficient way to manage services on any computer, and if you have some talent with Windows Scripting, you can even automate the process to make your job even easier.

Do you think the SC command could come in handy for you? What about an automated script that runs the command? Share your ideas and thoughts in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

But when you get one of those nasty little downloads – one of those little scripts or apps that dig its way deep down into the heart of your computer – it can be unnerving.

Suddenly, your keyboard doesn’t work quite right. Your CPU starts going haywire when you aren’t even doing anything. Your mouse starts flipping out every time you open a particular browser.

If you’ve ever been bothered with such a malware or virus software, then you know what I’m talking about. Those little apps sometimes latch themselves to the inner workings of your computer when you least expect it.

While we all trust antivirus software and anti-malware programs like IOBit or MalwareBytes to identify those nasty varmints, the truth is that sometimes things slip through the cracks.

Luckily, there is a new tool you can use to manually go through and clean up those evil processes.

Close the Door on Malware

The bottom line is that any malware is typically meant to run in some form on your PC, and somehow transmit information into or out of your computer via the Internet.

A very simple utility called CloseTheDoor lets you probe into the processes that are running on your computer, and analyze those processes at a level that usually requires a professional. The reason you can do this is because CloseTheDoor makes the analysis very simple and logical, putting all of the tools you need in one place.

When you first run the program, it performs it’s basic function fast and well. You’ll see a list of every process “endpoint” that is listening on any port on your computer whatsoever. The detailed list tells you the interface IP (if there is one), the port, communication protocol, process ID, and any associated services.

While this all may not tell you exactly what the process is right away, the information is an important first step toward recognizing that something is running on your computer that you do not want running.

In particular, look for processes without any associated company or description information.

Once you spot a process that looks fishy, and you want to learn more, just click on the “Selection” menu and then click on “Locate the executable file”.

As you can see below, by tracing down the actual executable, you will often be able to identify the software that kicked off the process. For example, in this case Windows Explorer opened to the path for PaperCut NG, which was an educational software package that I was testing recently.
This discovery told me that there was a process running that I didn’t know about, consuming precious memory. Uninstalling the software removed that process, freed up the memory, and ultimately improved performance.

If you click on “File” and then the summary, you will see a general report with totals for how many endpoints are listening on each interface IP address. You don’t need to be quite as concerned with the IP addresses as you do with the total number of processes that are listening on some port on your PC

The software also gives you an entire toolbox of shortcuts and tools you can use to troubleshoot any problem processes that you simply can’t seem to recognize as valid. Sometimes, there may be a process running that isn’t malware, but you really don’t want it running all the time. That may be from a startup shortcut being added to your Startup folder without your knowledge. You can check out things like that using the System configuration utility under “Tools”.

Here you can view running services on your computer, and more importantly you can view and disable or enable all of the applications that are set up to auto-startup when you boot up your computer. This configuration utility puts all of the Windows config tools that can help you with process analysis all in one convenient window.

Another fast way to analyze an unknown process is by right clicking the service in the main display, and clicking on either “Process services” to view the services that are kicked off by this process, or you can use any of the Google or Wikipedia links in the list to research exactly what the process might be, and what that particular port is usually used for.

If you click to view the services, you’ll get a table of all running services that were kicked off by that process. You can select any of these services and stop them if you want. More importantly, some of the detailed names for those services may also offer some clues as the what the mysterious process is really all about.

To help you do some extensive research on the processes and services that you find running on your PC, CloseTheDoor offers a list of online resources under “Internet References”. Click on any of these to open up your browser and review resources like a list of port numbers and their uses at www.iana.org, a list of all Windows services at Wikimedia.org or how to configure your firewall at Microsoft.

The bottom line is that there will always bee some new malicious app out there that somehow – no matter what protections or blockades you put in place – gets onto your PC. When things start heading south with your PC activity and performance, researching your running processes is always a really good idea, and CloseTheDoor makes the process simple and painless.

Try out this utility and see if it helps you identify things running on your PC that you didn’t know about. Share your experiences with the software in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

However, there’s one technique that is rarely used. In fact, it’s much different from the common advice to close applications you don’t need. So what is this secret technique?

What Is Process Prioritization?

Process prioritization has existed in Windows for quite a while now, but it hasn’t really been used by most people because it’s hidden in a pretty technical corner of your computer. Whenever a process, or running application, has an assigned priority, the system will try its best to allocate its resources (which will be primarily the amount of CPU power) to fit the process’s needs based on its priority. So theoretically, the higher the priority, the faster the application should run.

How To Do It

There are two ways in order to do this. First, you can change the priority of processes through the task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) by right clicking on each process and changing the priority. However these changes disappear once the process ends, and it takes time to apply those priorities to multiple processes. You also can’t create “rules” for new processes. Here’s where a nifty little program comes in.

About Process Prioritizer

Process Prioritizer makes managing process priorities easier than with just the Task Manager. With Process Prioritizer, you can essentially create rules for Windows to follow for any processes that you choose. You can even choose to change the priority of system processes if you run the program as an administrator, but only do it if you’re 500% sure what you’re doing. However, you’ll need to install it first in order to make changes.

Installation

For installation, you’ll need to go to this site, scroll to the very bottom, and hit the last download link. Go through the setup wizard as normal, and you should now have an entry in your start menu. Go ahead and click on it, and a tray icon should now appear. Right click on it and select Open to start the configuration.

The Program

As you can see, the window isn’t exactly stylish, but for a fairly administrative task you can’t really ask for much in that department. There are a couple of tabs for configuration, and each tab only has a certain option.

The “Operation” tab allows you to choose how it should update the process priorities. I would recommend leaving it at the default setting as it’s the fastest without using up a lot of CPU power.

The next four tabs simply allow you to enter in the names of processes for each level of priority. Real-time is the highest, and Idle is the lowest. Note that putting in process names in the Normal tab won’t do anything unless the operating system launches that process at a different priority by default, which I wouldn’t recommend touching.

Also, when entering processes, don’t forget to add “.exe” to the end. So for example, you can add “chrome.exe” to change the priority of Google Chrome. You can find out the name of the process you’re looking for in the task manager or in the tab labeled “Current Processes“. In that tab, you can confirm that the targeted process has changed priorities.

Conclusion

Like I mentioned above, the positive effects are theoretical. There isn’t a guarantee that it’ll bring much, but it’s always worth a try. Through personal experience I’ve seen that processes that don’t have a graphical part to it (like a GUI) have the most benefit from it. Chrome sometimes benefits from it, being faster one time and it feels like it’s stumbling over itself another time. It’s always best to try it out as you might get some much appreciated speed.

What’s your favorite way of speeding up your system? What has worked, and what hasn’t worked that you thought might have? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

But with this little 116KB download from GoogleCode you can force an application to close with Control-Alt-F4. This will effectively kill the application without any other intervention. The program also offers the option to press the Windows key + F4 and then click on the window you want to kill. These two options make this a handy dandy item for my toolkit.

I downloaded the application and installed it. You have options within the installer to check for updates as well as making Super F4 start up with Windows. Once it is running you will see this item in your system tray:

The icon for Super F4 is the one all the way on the left. If you right-click on it you will see your basic options. You can disable it, hide the tray icon and set the auto-start functionality as well as exit the application.

Normally when killing FileZilla I would get a dialogue box that looked like this:

That means I have to actually click on the box and answer the question. If I want to be swift about it I just need to hit my Control-Alt-F4 and blammo FileZilla is closed with no pop-up. That means I can just continue on to do what I have to do.

I simulated a failure in Excel and hit the Control + Alt + F4 and just like that it was closed! Sweet! Next up I wanted to give the other option a shot. I opened up everything and I wanted to try the Windows Key + F4 to choose the program I wanted to close. The mouse cursor turns into a Skull and Cross Bones. You simply click on the application you want to kill and that’s it.

This is a great program for power users but remember if you have not saved your work in the application and you close it with Super F4 you will lose those changes you made since you last saved.

Do you have another way of killing hung processes? Share them with us in the comments.

Windows Task Manager is the obvious solution that comes to mind which allows you to achieve this. However there are some software that provide additional functionality that is not offered by Windows Task Manager.

Let’s have a look at some of them :

Process Manager for Windows

PMW lets you access some of the Windows Task Manager functionality using the right click menu or the application menu (accessed via Alt+Space).

PMW has options for

• setting priorities of the tasks.
• changing opacity of windows.
• ability to minimize any application to the tray.
• Hide an application or all other applications.
• Kill the application without having to run the task manager.

If these are too much for you, you can choose to hide some of these options via the Process Manager Preferences.

Prio

If you are an avid user, you must have noticed the set priority setting inside Windows Task Manager when you right-click on any process. What this setting does is that it allows you to change the priority of a particular process so that it gets more CPU time and would thus complete faster or be more responsive (you should be careful while changing priorities, as doing this might cause instability).

One problem with changing the priority is that the next time you run the same application it starts executing with normal priority and forgets your “priority settings”. This is where Prio comes in.

Prio allows you to permanently set priorities of certain tasks according to your requirements. Just set the priority of any task according to your requirement, make sure that “Save Priority” has a tick next to it, and you are done.

In addition to this you can choose to install the Task Manager GUI and Prio Network Driver. These will give you additional information about services, processes and network connections within the Task Manager Window.

Extended Task Manager

Extended Task Manager is like the Windows Task Manager on steroids. It offers a host of information about the current state of the system that the standard Windows task manager doesn’t provide you with.

Here are a few features and additional bits of information that Extended Task Manager offers:

• Displays disk input/output activity with information about related applications.

• Displays network port activity with IP addresses of external computers.

• Displays information about applications that utilized most of the CPU or memory at any time presented on the charts.
• Displays all files locked by a select process.

• Finds all processes locking a specified file.
• Includes “Summary” tab for quickly assessing the overall state of the Windows system.
• Allows freezing individual Windows processes.
• Offers various visual and functional improvements over the standard Windows Task Manager.

Do you know of some other tools that allows you to view such kinds of information about your computer?

So, tally ho!   And on with the show!

7.  TrueCrypt

The king of computer encryption programs.   Extremely easy to set up and once you have your encrypted folder(s) set up on your computer, it is impossible for anyone to crack it open (unless you make your password blatantly obvious like P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D for example, in which case you have no business using an encryption program in the first place).

Everyone should have an encryption program on their computer for computer passwords, financial records, private correspondence and any other sensitive material that shouldn’t be readily accessible to prying eyes.

My first ever post for MakeUseOf was about TrueCrypt and you can also encrypt your USB stick with the app.   So Truecrypt is very versatile and flexible.    Sometimes it does pay to be paranoid and careful.

8.  Unlocker

Have you ever tried to delete a file only to get this error message?

I get this message a lot and it irritates the hell out of me. So this is where Unlocker comes in to save the day (and my sanity).

Whenever you can’t delete a file, just right-click on it and choose “Unlocker” (the app integrates itself into the Explorer right-click menu). Unlocker will then kill all the Windows processes that are holding that app and stopping you from deleting it. You can then go ahead and nuke the file.

If for any reason it can’t kill the dastardly processes which are holding you back, Unlocker will blast away the file for you when you next boot up the computer.

Here’s my original MUO story on Unlocker.

9.  Filebox eXtender

There are two parts to this app that are insanely useful.  The first is the ability to add shortcuts to certain Windows Explorer folders which you access on a regular basis :

This saves a lot of time if one of your most accessed folders in Windows Explorer is a sub-folder tucked away in lots of other sub-folders.   Instead of tediously click-click-clicking with a mouse to get to that folder several times a day, you can use Filebox eXtender to create a one-click shortcut to that folder instead.

But the best part of Filebox eXtender are the “push-pins” which you can use to keep an app “on top” of all other windows.   So say I want to keep Skype on top of all other Windows.   I just need to use the push-pin to “pin” Skype to the top of all the other windows, as if I was pinning it to a notice board :

Here’s the original MUO story.

10.  CDex & Audioshell

Whenever I buy a CD, I immediately rip a MP3 copy for my iPod using CDex.   CDex is most definately the best freeware CD ripping tool available.   After putting the CD into your hard drive, CDex immediately detects the disk and after hitting a button, the disk is ripped to MP3 format in the space of a couple of minutes.   Most of the time, it can even auto-name your files for you too.

When the files have not been auto-named by CD-ex, I then use the free Audioshell to edit the ID3 tags and add album art (see my original MUO story here).

11. Quick Media Converter

When it comes to file conversion, Quick Media Converter is an absolute gem and it seems there is nothing it can’t do.   I have yet to find a file it won’t convert.    It seems totally unbeatable.

It converts audio files and video files from one format to another.   It converts files to iPod format and iPod files back to normal format.    It converts files to Flash and back again.   DVD’s from PAL to NTSC and vice versa.    Files to iPhone format and vice versa.   Files to Playstation and Xbox format even.

There is also a webcam video recorder and a Camstudio screencast recorder but I haven’t ever used those so I can’t give an opinion on how good they are.   But the file conversion tools are just far and away the best I’ve ever encountered.

So that’s the Mark Pack – 11 apps that appear on my computer ALL the time.   But as I said in my last post, due to me testing and reviewing apps all the time, I might find a new favourite app tomorrow and number 12 might enter the Mark Pack any day.    But when it does, I’ll be sure to let you know!

So what’s in your Pack?   Please do let me know!    And let me know what you think of my choices!