How to use SystemInformer to monitor system resources, debug software, and detect malware

1. Provides a detailed overview of system activity (with highlighting/underlining);

2. Graphs and statistics allow us to quickly track the system resources and out-of-control processes in use;

3. Unable to edit or delete files? This tool can discover which processes are using the file;

4. It supports viewing which programs have active network connections and closing them if necessary;

5. Real-time information about disk access can be obtained;

6. Supports using kernel mode, WOW64, and .NET to view detailed stack trace data;

7. Based on services.msc, more functions are implemented, which can create, edit, and control services;

8. Small size, no installation required, available anywhere;

9. 100% free, followingMITOpen source license agreement;

System requirements

Windows 7 or higher version, supporting 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

Tool download

Researchers can use the following command to clone the source code of this project locally:

git clone https://github.com/winsiderss/systeminformer.git

Project build

Building project code requires Visual Studio 2022 or a higher version.

We can compile the project code by executing build_release.cmd in the project build directory, or use Visual Studio to load the SystemInformer.sln and Plugins.sln solutions.

We can click [Here】Download Visual Studio Community Edition to build the source code of SystemInformer.

Tool settings

If you are running SystemInformer from a USB drive, you also need to save all the configuration information of the SystemInformer tool. To do this, we need to create an empty file named SystemInformer.exe.settings.xml in the directory where SystemInformer.exe is located, and then follow the steps below:

1. In Windows Explorer, make sure the checkbox for 'Hide known file extensions' under 'Tools > Folder Options > View' is unchecked;
2. Right-click on the blank area in the folder and select 'New > Text Document';
3. Rename the file to SystemInformer.exe.settings.xml;

Plugin system

We can click on 'Options -> Plugins' to configure the tool plugin.

If you encounter errors or issues while using the plugin, you can resolve them by updating the plugin.

The disk and network information provided by the ExtendedTools plugin is only available when SystemInformer is running with administrative privileges.