Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Process Explorer VS WinDbg

Compare Process Explorer VS WinDbg and see what are their differences

Process Explorer logo Process Explorer

The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'l…

WinDbg logo WinDbg

WinDbg is a multipurposed debugger for Microsoft Windows, distributed on the web by Microsoft as...
  • Process Explorer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-21
  • WinDbg Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-18

Process Explorer videos

Sysinternals Process Explorer Review + download link and method

More videos:

  • Review - Scan for Malware Using Process Explorer and Virus Total
  • Review - What Is?: Process Explorer?

WinDbg videos

Getting familiar with WinDbg Preview - THR3014

More videos:

  • Review - Analyzing Windows crash dump using WINDBG
  • Review - Analyzing User Mode Dumps With WinDbg

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Process Explorer and WinDbg)
Monitoring Tools
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
0 0%
100% 100
Command Line Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Software Development
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Process Explorer seems to be a lot more popular than WinDbg. While we know about 287 links to Process Explorer, we've tracked only 6 mentions of WinDbg. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Process Explorer mentions (287)

  • Hidden dependencies in Linux binaries.
    On windows, this is Dependency Walker versus ProcExp. Similar eye-goggling results. https://www.dependencywalker.com/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Windows Explorer and Desktop Window Manager high RAM usage
    If you run Process Explorer (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer) and enable process tree view, you can see what processes are running under explorer.exe. That should give you a better idea of what's consuming that memory if you're genuinely concerned about this. Source: 5 months ago
  • Roblox doesn't launch for months on PC
    If you have any suspicious processes running onto your computer, close them IMMEDIATELY. I suggest using Process Explorer, as it has a Virustotal which submits all Executables to virustotal under 70+ antiviruses. If any of the processes have 3+ detections, Close them down as anticheats will detect it and stop you from running Roblox. Source: 5 months ago
  • skype is using 20/30% of my CPU all the time even when its on the idle mode.
    If it is the former you can try Process Explorer and set the priority lower (to like 6 or even 4) and see what happens. You can also set the processor affinity with it to limit Skype to only use certain cores. Source: 5 months ago
  • Ways To Check VRAM Usage Per App? Something Is Eating 24Gb VRAM.
    Use process explorer. Download from https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer. Source: 10 months ago
View more

WinDbg mentions (6)

  • Having Issues Deploying a Driver to my Test System - Windows Docs so confusing
    Windows 11, version 22H2 release of the WDK Installed + added to Visual Studio. Source: 10 months ago
  • Stack Trace / Thread Dump Analysis
    The stack frames will look cryptic, but if that's good enough for you -- there you go! If you want a clearer ST, you'll have to download and install Debug Tools and load Debug Symbols into the ProcessExplorer as shown in tutorials:. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Dagger: a new way to build CI/CD pipelines
    Okay, here’s an SDK I use. It’s 16GB. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/download-the-wdk#enterprise-wdk-ewdk Show me how to use this with GitHub actions, if it’s not too hard. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Creating a driver - Where to start, I have 0 knowledge or experience
    1) I have downloaded VScode, windows SDK, windows WDK, and the EWDK. The video only mentions downloading the first three items ^. However, the windows link I used to download the SDK and WDK had a 3rd step to download the EWDK. Link for Reference. What is an EWDK and do I need it? 2) I am using windows and the video says to download a VM. I assume I do not need to do that because I am already in windows. If my... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Open a dump file with MS studio?
    I also downloaded the " Windows Driver Kit (WDK). " Not really sure what to do next... Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Process Explorer and WinDbg, you can also consider the following products

Process Monitor - Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.

OllyDbg - OllyDbg is a 32-bit assembler level analysing debugger.

htop - htop - an interactive process viewer for Unix. This is htop, an interactive process viewer for Unix systems. It is a text-mode application (for console or X terminals) and requires ncurses. Latest release: htop 2.

X64dbg - X64dbg is a debugging software that can debug x64 and x32 applications.

Autoruns - See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login.

Immunity Debugger - Immunity Debugger is a powerful new way to write exploits, analyze malware, and reverse engineer...