Copyright: PVIEW.HLP, Version 1.00.3125


Contents
PView Process Viewer

  About PView

  The Process Viewer Dialog Box

  Process Selection

  Process Memory Used

  Priority

  Thread Selection

  Thread Information

  Thread Priority

  The Memory Details Dialog Box


Copyright Notice
Copyright Notice for PView Help

Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Companies, names, and data used in examples herein are fictitious unless otherwise noted. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

© 1993 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft is a registered trademark and Windows and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.


About PView

The PView process viewer lets you examine and modify many characteristics of processes and threads running on your system.

PView can help you answer questions like these:

How much memory does the program allocate at various points in its execution, and how much memory is being paged out?

Which processes and threads are using the most CPU time?

How does the program run at different system priorities?

What happens if a thread or process stops responding to DDE, OLE, or pipe I/O?

What percentage of time is being spent running API calls?

Warning  PView lets you modify the status of processes running on your system. As a result, by using PView, you can stop processes and potentially halt the entire system. Make sure that you have saved edited files before running PView.


PView Dialog Box
Process Viewer Dialog Box

The Process Viewer dialog box consists of several boxes containing information on active processes and threads, and controls to change their behavior.

The following buttons control PView actions:

Exit

Closes PView.

Memory Details

Opens the Memory Details dialog box.

Kill Process

Removes the highlighted process from the system. This is different from choosing Close from the system menu, because the process is not informed of the shutdown (with WM_DESTROY) before it is stopped.

Refresh

Updates information in the Process Viewer dialog box and the Memory Details dialog box.

Connect

View information about the computer specified in the Computer text box. The Computer box should contain the network name of the computer that you wish to view. Your ability to connect to a remote system may be affected by security on the target machine.

See the topics below for information on the Process Viewer boxes that relate to active processes and threads:

  Process Selection

  Process Memory Used

  Priority

  Thread Selection

  Thread Information

  Thread Priority


Process Selection List Box
Process Selection

The Process Selection list box on the Process Viewer dialog box displays information on the accessible processes running on the system. From this list, you can select a process to use for future actions. All other information and control areas in PView reflect the process chosen in this box.

Note  Since Windows NT is a secure operating system, you may not be able to view or alter attributes of some programs running on the system. See your Windows NT Users Guide for more information on NT security.

The fields in the Process Selection box are as follows:

Process

Name of the process on this line. Usually an .EXE filename.

CPU Time

Amount of CPU time that this process has used.

Privileged

Percentage of the CPU time that was spent executing privileged code (code in the NT Executive).

User

Percentage of the CPU time that was spent executing user code. This time includes time running protected subsystem code.


Process Memory Used Box
Process Memory Used

The Process Memory Used box on the Process Viewer dialog box displays information on the memory usage of the process selected in the Process Selection box:

Working Set

The average amount of physical memory used by the process. The longer a process has been running, the more accurate this value is.

Heap Usage

The current total heap being used by the process. Heap space is taken by dynamically allocated data, including memory reserved by malloc, new, LocalAlloc, HeapAlloc, VirtualAlloc, and GlobalAlloc.


Priority Buttons
Priority

The Priority buttons on the Process Viewer dialog box let you change the base priority of the process highlighted in the Process Selection box. This priority determines the activity of all threads of the selected process:

Very High

Maximum priority. CPU time is split between this and other Very High priority processes. Lower priority processes will execute only when all Very High priority processes are blocked.

Normal

The standard priority group, also known as foreground. Most applications run with normal priority.

Idle

The lowest priority group, also known as background. Processes with this priority will execute only when the system has no higher-priority processes that need CPU time. Screen savers run at this priority.


Thread Selection List Box
Thread Selection

The Thread Selection list box on the Process Viewer dialog box displays statistics for threads of the process selected in the Process Selection box and lets you select a thread for further operations:

Threads

The thread ID number. This is the handle returned by CreateThread.

CPU Time

The amount of time that this instance of the thread has been running.

% Privileged

The percentage of the CPU time that was spent executing privileged code (code in the NT Executive).

% User

The percentage of the CPU time that was spent executing user code. This time includes time running protected subsystem code.


Thread Selection Box
Thread Information

The Thread Selection box on the Process Viewer dialog box displays execution information about the thread selected in the Thread Selection box:

User PC Value

The value of the instruction pointer for this thread.

Start Address

The address of the entry point of this thread. This information is useful for debugging.

Context Switches

Number of times that this thread has received CPU attention.

Dynamic Priority

The current dynamic thread priority. This number is determined by many factors, including user activity.


Thread Priority Box
Thread Priority

The Thread Priority box on the Process Viewer dialog box shows you the base priority of the thread selected in the Thread Selection box. This is not an absolute priority, but is a range of priorities that can be selected by the operating system for the selected thread:

Highest

The highest priority level allowed by the process priority.

Above Normal

Slightly elevated priority.

Normal

The standard priority level for the given process priority.

Below Normal

Reduced priority.

Idle

No CPU time will be spent on this thread unless all other threads are blocked.


Memory Details Dialog Box

The Memory Details dialog box gives information on the process selected by the Process Selection box in the Process Viewer dialog box. To update the information contained in this dialog box, return to the main dialog box and click on the Refresh button.

This dialog box consists of the following buttons:

OK

Returns to the Process Viewer dialog box.

Process

The name and process ID of the process selected in the Process Selection box of the main dialog.

User Address Space for

Displays the statistics for specific .EXE or .DLL files or Total Image Commit, which displays statistics for all components of the currently selected process. These statistics are the following:

Inaccessible

Address space that cannot be accessed. This includes memory reserved by VirtualAlloc.

Read Only

Read-only data and code.

Writeable

Total data address space that can be written to.

Writeable (Not Written)

Data address space that can be written to, but has not been.

Executable

Code in selected EXEs and DLLs.

Virtual Memory Counts

Displays the following statistics on Virtual Memory usage:

Working Set

Average amount of virtual memory used by the process. The longer a process has been running, the more accurate this value is.

Peak Working Set

Maximum value attained by the Working Set described above.

Private Pages

Number of pages marked as private.

Virtual Size

Current size of virtual memory for this process.

Peak Virtual Size

Maximum size of virtual memory for this process.

Fault Count

Number of page faults. Each page fault represents an attempt to access memory at an address that was not in physical memory.

Paged

Number of pages currently in the swap file.

Peak Paged

Maximum number of pages currently in the swap file.

Non-Paged

Number of pages that have not been moved to the swap file.