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File and Disk Utilities
AccessChk
AccessEnum
CacheSet
Contig
Disk2vhd
DiskExt
DiskMon
Disk Usage
DiskView
EFSDump
LDMDump
MoveFile
NTFSInfo
PageDefrag
PendMoves
RegMon
SDelete
Sigcheck
Streams
Sync
VolumeID
Networking Utilities
Active Directory Explorer
Insight for Active Directory
AdRestore
PipeList
 PsFile
PsPing
ShareEnum
TCPView
Whois
Process Utilities
AutoRuns
Handle
ListDLLs
Portmon
ProcDump
Process Explorer
Process Monitor
PsExec
PsGetSid
PsKill
PsList
PsService
PsSuspend
PsTools
ShellRunas
VMMap
Security Utilities
Autologon
LogonSessions
NewSID
PsLoggedOn
PsLogList
RootkitRevealer
Sysmon
System Information
ClockRes
 Coreinfo
LiveKd
LoadOrder
ProcFeatures
PsInfo
RAMMap
WinObj
Miscellaneous
BgInfo
BlueScreen Screen Saver
CpuStres
Ctrl2Cap
DebugView
Desktops
Hex2dec
NotMyFault
PsPasswd
PsShutdown
RDCMan
RegDelNull
Registry Usage
Reghide
RegJump
Strings
Testlimit
ZoomIt
Sysinternals Suite
Community
Resources
Mark's Webcasts
Windows Internals Book
Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals Tools
 Inside Native Applications
Software License Terms
Licensing FAQ
 Windows Sysinternals
6/22/2021 • 5 minutes to read • Edit Online

The Sysinternals web site was created in 1996 by Mark Russinovich to host his advanced system utilities and
technical information. Whether you’re an IT Pro or a developer, you’ll find Sysinternals utilities to help you
manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications.
Read the official guide to the Sysinternals tools, Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals Tools
Read the Sysinternals Blog for a detailed change feed of tool updates
Watch Mark's Sysinternals Update videos on YouTube
Watch Mark’s top-rated Case-of-the-Unexplained troubleshooting presentations and other webcasts
Read Mark’s Blog which highlight use of the tools to solve real problems
Check out the Sysinternals Learning Resources page
Post your questions in the Sysinternals Forum

Sysinternals Live
Sysinternals Live is a service that enables you to execute Sysinternals tools directly from the Web without
hunting for and manually downloading them. Simply enter a tool's Sysinternals Live path into Windows Explorer
or a command prompt as live.sysinternals.com/<toolname> or \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\<toolname>.
You can view the entire Sysinternals Live tools directory in a browser at https://live.sysinternals.com/.

What's New
What's New (June 22, 2021)
RDCMan v2.8 RDCMan, a utility for managing multiple remote desktop connections, is now part of the
Sysinternals family of tools!
What's New (May 25, 2021)
Process Monitor v3.80 Process Monitor is the latest tool to integrate with the new Sysinternals theme
engine, giving it dark mode support.
Sysmon v13.20 This update to Sysmon, an advanced system security monitor, adds " not begin with " and
" not end with " filter conditions and fixes a regression for rule include/exclude logic.
TCPView v4.10 This update to TCPView, a TCP/UDP endpoint query tool, adds the ability to filter
connections by state.
Process Explorer v16.40 This update to Process Explorer, an advanced process, DLL and handle viewing
utility, adds process filtering support to the main display and reports process CET (shadow stack)
support.
What's New (April 21, 2021)
Process Monitor v3.70 This update to Process Monitor allows constraining the number of events based
on a requested number minutes and/or size of the events data, so that older events are dropped if
necessary. It also fixes a bug where the Drop Filtered Events option wasn’t always respected and contains
other minor bug fixes and improvements.
Sysmon v13.10 This update to Sysmon adds a FileDeleteDetected rule that logs when files are deleted but
 doesn't archive, deletes clipboard archive if event is excluded and fixes an ImageLoad event bug.
Theme Engine This update to the theme engine uses a custom title bar in dark mode, similar to MS Office
black theme. WinObj and TCPView have been updated. Expect more tools using the theme engine in the
near future!
What's New (March 23, 2021)
TCPView v4.0 This major update to TCPView adds flexible filtering, support for searching, and now shows the
Windows service that owns an endpoint. It is also the second Sysinternals tool to feature the new theme
engine with dark mode.
What's New (February 22, 2021)
WinObj v3.0 This major update to WinObj adds dynamic updates, quick search, full search, properties for
more object types, as well as performance improvements. It's also the first Sysinternals tool to feature a
dark theme.
Coreinfo v3.52 This update to CoreInfo adds reporting for CET (shadow stack) support.
What's New (January 11, 2021)
Sysmon v13.00 This update to Sysmon adds a process image tampering event that reports when the
mapped image of a process doesn’t match the on-disk image file, or the image file is locked for exclusive
access. These indicators are triggered by process hollowing and process herpaderping. This release also
includes several bug fixes, including fixes for minor memory leaks.
Process Monitor v3.61 This update to Process Monitor adds monitoring for RegSaveKey, RegLoadKey and
RegRestoreKey APIs, as well as fixes a bug in the details output for some types of directory queries.
What's New (November 04, 2020)
AdExplorer v1.50 This release of AdExplorer, an Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor, adds support for
exporting data from the "Compare" dialog and is now available for x64 and ARM64.
Disk Usage (DU) v1.62 This release of Disk Usage (DU), a tool for viewing disk usage information, now
also accounts for the MFT (Master File Table), removes the MAX_PATH limitation and is now available for
ARM64.
What's New (October 15, 2020)
VMMap v3.30 This update to VMMap, a utility that reports the virtual memory layout of a process,
identifies .NET Core 3.0 managed heaps.
RAMMap v1.60 This release to RAMMap, a utility that analyzes and displays physical memory usage,
adds customizable map colors and a new command line option, -e, to empty the different types of system
working sets.
What's New (September 17, 2020)
Sysmon v12.0 In addition to several bug fixes, this major update to Sysmon adds support for capturing
clipboard operations to help incident responders retrieve attacker RDP file and command drops,
including originating remote machine IP addresses.
Process Monitor v3.60 This update to Process Monitor, a utility that logs process file, network and registry
activity, adds support for multiple filter item selection, as well as decoding for new file system control
operations and error status codes.
Procdump v10.0 This release of Procdump, a flexible tool for manual and trigger-based process dump
generation, adds support for dump cancellation and CoreCLR processes.
ARM64 ports In addition, several tools have been newly ported to and are now available for ARM64.
These include: AdInsight v1.2, AutoLogon v3.1, Autoruns v13.98, ClockRes v2.1, DebugView v4.9, DiskExt
 v1.2, FindLinks v1.1, Handle v4.22, Hex2Dec v1.1, Junction v1.07, PendMoves v1.02, PipeList v1.02,
Procdump v10.0, Process Explorer v16.32, RegDelNull v1.11, RU v1.2, Sigcheck v2.8, Streams v1.6, Sync
v2.2, VMMap v3.26, WhoIs v1.21 and ZoomIt v4.52. Download all ARM64 tools in a single download with
the Sysinternals Suite for ARM64.
What's New (June 24, 2020)
Sysmon v11.10 This update to Sysmon now captures stream content for alternate data streams into
logged events, which is useful for investigating downloads tagged with ‘Mark of the Web’ (MOTW)
streams, introduces an ‘is-any’ filter condition, and fixes several bugs.
Sigcheck v2.80 Sigcheck, a flexible tool for showing file versions, file signatures, and certificate stores,
introduces a -p option for specifying a trust GUID for signature verification, and it now shows certificate
signing chains even when a certificate in the chain is untrusted.
Sysinternals June 24 Update Video Mark Russinovich covers what’s new in this update, with demos of
Sysmon’s alternate data stream content capture and new features in Sigcheck.
 Sysinternals Utilities Index
6/24/2021 • 7 minutes to read • Edit Online

Sysinternals Suite
The entire set of Sysinternals Utilities rolled up into a single download.
Sysinternals Suite for Nano Server
Sysinternals Utilities for Nano Server in a single download.
Sysinternals Suite for ARM64
Sysinternals Utilities for ARM64 in a single download.
AccessChk
v6.14 (June 22, 2021)
AccessChk is a command-line tool for viewing the effective permissions on files, registry keys, services,
processes, kernel objects, and more.
AccessEnum
v1.32 (November 1, 2006)
This simple yet powerful security tool shows you who has what access to directories, files and Registry keys on
your systems. Use it to find holes in your permissions.
AdExplorer
v1.50 (November 04, 2020)
Active Directory Explorer is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor.
AdInsight
v1.2 (October 26, 2015)
An LDAP (Light-weight Directory Access Protocol) real-time monitoring tool aimed at troubleshooting Active
Directory client applications.
AdRestore
v1.2 (November 25, 2020)
Undelete Server 2003 Active Directory objects.
Autologon
v3.10 (August 29, 2016)
Bypass password screen during logon.
Autoruns
v13.100 (April 23, 2021)
See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns
also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.
BgInfo
v4.26 (October 19, 2018)
This fully-configurable program automatically generates desktop backgrounds that include important
information about the system including IP addresses, computer name, network adapters, and more.
BlueScreen
v3.2 (November 1, 2006)
This screen saver not only accurately simulates Blue Screens, but simulated reboots as well (complete with
CHKDSK), and works on Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Server 2003 and Windows 95 and 98.
CacheSet
v1.0 (November 1, 2006)
CacheSet is a program that allows you to control the Cache Manager's working set size using functions provided
by NT. It's compatible with all versions of NT.
ClockRes
v2.1 (July 4, 2016)
View the resolution of the system clock, which is also the maximum timer resolution.
Contig
v1.8 (July 4, 2016)
Wish you could quickly defragment your frequently used files? Use Contig to optimize individual files, or to
create new files that are contiguous.
Coreinfo
v3.31 (August 18, 2014)
Coreinfo is a new command-line utility that shows you the mapping between logical processors and the
physical processor, NUMA node, and socket on which they reside, as well as the cache’s assigned to each logical
processor.
Ctrl2cap
v2.0 (November 1, 2006)
This is a kernel-mode driver that demonstrates keyboard input filtering just above the keyboard class driver in
order to turn caps-locks into control keys. Filtering at this level allows conversion and hiding of keys before NT
even "sees" them. Ctrl2cap also shows how to use NtDisplayString() to print messages to the initialization blue-
screen.
DebugView
v4.90 (April 23, 2019)
Another first from Sysinternals: This program intercepts calls made to DbgPrint by device drivers and
OutputDebugString made by Win32 programs. It allows for viewing and recording of debug session output on
your local machine or across the Internet without an active debugger.
Desktops
v2.0 (October 17, 2012)
This new utility enables you to create up to four virtual desktops and to use a tray interface or hotkeys to
preview what’s on each desktop and easily switch between them.
Disk2vhd
v2.01 (January 21, 2014)
Disk2vhd simplifies the migration of physical systems into virtual machines (p2v.md).
DiskExt
v1.2 (July 4, 2016)
Display volume disk-mappings.
Diskmon
v2.01 (November 1, 2006)
This utility captures all hard disk activity or acts like a software disk activity light in your system tray.
DiskView
v2.41 (October 15, 2020)
Graphical disk sector utility.
Disk Usage (DU)
v1.62 (November 04, 2020)
View disk usage by directory.
EFSDump
v1.02 (November 1, 2006)
View information for encrypted files.
FindLinks
v1.1 (July 4, 2016)
FindLinks reports the file index and any hard links (alternate file paths on the same volume.md) that exist for the
specified file. A file's data remains allocated so long as at it has at least one file name referencing it.
Handle
v4.22 (June 14, 2019)
This handy command-line utility will show you what files are open by which processes, and much more.
Hex2dec
v1.1 (July 4, 2016)
Convert hex numbers to decimal and vice versa.
Junction
v1.07 (July 4, 2016)
Create Win2K NTFS symbolic links.
LDMDump
v1.02 (November 1, 2006)
Dump the contents of the Logical Disk Manager's on-disk database, which describes the partitioning of
Windows 2000 Dynamic disks.
ListDLLs
v3.2 (July 4, 2016)
List all the DLLs that are currently loaded, including where they are loaded and their version numbers.
LiveKd
v5.62 (May 16, 2017)
Use Microsoft kernel debuggers to examine a live system.
LoadOrder
v1.01 (July 4, 2016)
See the order in which devices are loaded on your WinNT/2K system.
LogonSessions
v1.41 (November 25, 2020)
List the active logon sessions on a system.
MoveFile
v1.01 (January 24, 2013)
Allows you to schedule move and delete commands for the next reboot.
NotMyFault
v4.01 (November 18, 2016)
Notmyfault is a tool that you can use to crash, hang, and cause kernel memory leaks on your Windows system.
NTFSInfo
v1.2 (July 4, 2016)
Use NTFSInfo to see detailed information about NTFS volumes, including the size and location of the Master File
Table (MFT) and MFT-zone, as well as the sizes of the NTFS meta-data files.
PendMoves
v1.2 (February 5, 2013)
Enumerate the list of file rename and delete commands that will be executed the next boot.
PipeList
v1.02 (July 4, 2016)
Displays the named pipes on your system, including the number of maximum instances and active instances for
each pipe.
PortMon
v3.03 (January 12, 2012)
Monitor serial and parallel port activity with this advanced monitoring tool. It knows about all standard serial
and parallel IOCTLs and even shows you a portion of the data being sent and received. Version 3.x has powerful
new UI enhancements and advanced filtering capabilities.
ProcDump
v10.0 (September 17, 2020)
This command-line utility is aimed at capturing process dumps of otherwise difficult to isolate and reproduce
CPU spikes. It also serves as a general process dump creation utility and can also monitor and generate process
dumps when a process has a hung window or unhandled exception.
Process Explorer
v16.42 (June 1, 2021)
Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and
more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.
Process Monitor
v3.83 (June 22, 2021)
Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.
PsExec
v2.34 (May 25, 2021)
Execute processes on remote systems.
PsFile
v1.03 (June 29, 2016)
See what files are opened remotely.
PsGetSid
v1.45 (June 29, 2016)
Displays the SID of a computer or a user.
PsInfo
v1.78 (June 29, 2016)
Obtain information about a system.
PsKill
v1.16 (June 29, 2016)
Terminate local or remote processes.
PsPing
v2.01 (January 29, 2014)
Measure network performance.
PsList
v1.4 (June 29, 2016)
Show information about processes and threads.
PsLoggedOn
v1.35 (June 29, 2016)
Show users logged on to a system.
PsLogList
v2.8 (June 29, 2016)
Dump event log records.
PsPasswd
v1.24 (June 29, 2016)
Changes account passwords.
PsService
v2.25 (June 29, 2016)
View and control services.
PsShutdown
v2.52 (December 4, 2006)
Shuts down and optionally reboots a computer.
PsSuspend
v1.07 (June 29, 2016)
Suspend and resume processes.
PsTools
v2.47 (March 23, 2021)
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
RAMMap
v1.60 (October 15, 2020)
An advanced physical memory usage analysis utility that presents usage information in different ways on its
several different tabs.
RDCMan
v2.81 (June 24, 2021)
Manage multiple remote desktop connections.
RegDelNull
v1.11 (July 4, 2016)
Scan for and delete Registry keys that contain embedded null-characters that are otherwise undeleteable by
standard Registry-editing tools.
Registry Usage (RU)
v1.2 (July 4, 2016)
View the registry space usage for the specified registry key.
RegJump
v1.1 (April 20, 2015)
Jump to the registry path you specify in Regedit.
SDelete
v2.04 (November 25, 2020)
Securely overwrite your sensitive files and cleanse your free space of previously deleted files using this DoD-
compliant secure delete program.
ShareEnum
v1.6 (November 1, 2006)
Scan file shares on your network and view their security settings to close security holes.
ShellRunas
v1.01 (February 28, 2008)
Launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.
Sigcheck
v2.81 (May 25, 2021)
Dump file version information and verify that images on your system are digitally signed.
Streams
v1.6 (July 4, 2016)
Reveal NTFS alternate streams.
Strings
v2.54 (June 22, 2021)
Search for ANSI and UNICODE strings in binary images.
Sync
v2.2 (July 4, 2016)
Flush cached data to disk.
Sysmon
v13.22 (June 22, 2021)
Monitors and reports key system activity via the Windows event log.
TCPView
v4.13 (June 22, 2021)
Active socket viewer.
VMMap
v3.31 (November 04, 2020)
VMMap is a process virtual and physical memory analysis utility.
VolumeId
v2.1 (July 4, 2016)
Set Volume ID of FAT or NTFS drives.
Whois
v1.20 (December 11, 2019)
See who owns an Internet address.
WinObj
v3.10 (May 25, 2021)
The ultimate Object Manager namespace viewer is here.
ZoomIt
v4.52 (December 11, 2019)
Presentation utility for zooming and drawing on the screen.
 Sysinternals File and Disk Utilities
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

AccessChk
This tool shows you the accesses the user or group you specify has to files, Registry keys or Windows services.
AccessEnum
This simple yet powerful security tool shows you who has what access to directories, files and Registry keys on
your systems. Use it to find holes in your permissions.
CacheSet
CacheSet is a program that allows you to control the Cache Manager's working set size using functions provided
by NT. It's compatible with all versions of NT.
Contig
Wish you could quickly defragment your frequently used files? Use Contig to optimize individual files, or to
create new files that are contiguous.
Disk2vhd
Disk2vhd simplifies the migration of physical systems into virtual machines (p2v).
DiskExt
Display volume disk-mappings.
DiskMon
This utility captures all hard disk activity or acts like a software disk activity light in your system tray.
DiskView
Graphical disk sector utility.
Disk Usage (DU)
View disk usage by directory.
EFSDump
View information for encrypted files.
FindLinks
FindLinks reports the file index and any hard links (alternate file paths on the same volume) that exist for the
specified file. A file's data remains allocated so long as at it has at least one file name referencing it.
Junction
Create Win2K NTFS symbolic links.
LDMDump
Dump the contents of the Logical Disk Manager"s on-disk database, which describes the partitioning of
Windows 2000 Dynamic disks.
MoveFile
Schedule file rename and delete commands for the next reboot. This can be useful for cleaning stubborn or in-
use malware files.
NTFSInfo
Use NTFSInfo to see detailed information about NTFS volumes, including the size and location of the Master File
Table (MFT) and MFT-zone, as well as the sizes of the NTFS meta-data files.
PageDefrag
Defragment the Windows paging file and Registry hives.
PendMoves
See what files are scheduled for delete or rename the next time the system boots.
Process Monitor
Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.
PsFile
See what files are opened remotely.
PsTools
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
SDelete
Securely overwrite your sensitive files and cleanse your free space of previously deleted files using this DoD-
compliant secure delete program.
ShareEnum
Scan file shares on your network and view their security settings to close security holes.
Sigcheck
Dump file version information and verify that images on your system are digitally signed.
Streams
Reveal NTFS alternate streams.
Sync
Flush cached data to disk.
VolumeID
Set Volume ID of FAT or NTFS drives.
 AccessChk v6.14
6/22/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 22, 2021

Download AccessChk (958 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
As a part of ensuring that they've created a secure environment Windows administrators often need to know
what kind of accesses specific users or groups have to resources including files, directories, Registry keys, global
objects and Windows services. AccessChk quickly answers these questions with an intuitive interface and
output.

Installation
AccessChk is a console program. Copy AccessChk onto your executable path. Typing "accesschk" displays its
usage syntax.

Using AccessChk
Usage:

accesschk [-s][-e][-u][-r][-w][-n][-v]-[f <account>,...][[-a]|[-k]|[-p [-f] [-t]]|[-h][-o [-t <object

type>]][-c]|[-d]] [[-l [-i]]|[username]] <file, directory, registry key, process, service, object>

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Name is a Windows account right. Specify "*" as the name

to show all rights assigned to a user. Note that when you
specify a specific right, only groups and accounts directly
assigned to the right are displayed.

-c Name is a Windows Service, e.g. ssdpsrv . Specify "*" as

the name to show all services and scmanager to check the
security of the Service Control Manager.

-d Only process directories or top-level keys

-e Only show explicitly set-Integrity Levels (Windows Vista and

higher only)

-f If following -p , shows full process token information

including groups and privileges. Otherwise is a list of
comma-separated accounts to filter from the output.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-h Name is a file or printer share. Specify "*" as the name to

show all shares.

-i Ignore objects with only inherited ACEs when dumping full

access control lists.

-k Name is a Registry key, e.g. hklm\software

-l Show full security descriptor. Add -i to ignore inherited

ACEs.

-n Show only objects that have no access

-o Name is an object in the Object Manager namespace

(default is root). To view the contents of a directory, specify
the name with a trailing backslash or add -s . Add -t and
an object type (e.g. section) to see only objects of a specific
type.

-p Name is a process name or PID, e.g. cmd.exe (specify "*"

as the name to show all processes). Add -f to show full
process token information, including groups and privileges.
Add -t to show threads.

-q Omit Banner

-r Show only objects that have read access

-s Recurse

-t Object type filter, e.g. "section"

-u Suppress errors

-v Verbose (includes Windows Vista Integrity Level)

-w Show only objects that have write access

If you specify a user or group name and path, AccessChk will report the effective permissions for that account;
otherwise it will show the effective access for accounts referenced in the security descriptor.
By default, the path name is interpreted as a file system path (use the "\pipe\" prefix to specify a named pipe
path). For each object, AccessChk prints R if the account has read access, W for write access, and nothing if it
has neither. The -v switch has AccessChk dump the specific accesses granted to an account.

Examples
The following command reports the accesses that the Power Users account has to files and directories in
\Windows\System32 :

accesschk "power users" c:\windows\system32

This command shows which Windows services members of the Users group have write access to:

accesschk users -cw *

To see what Registry keys under HKLM\CurrentUser a specific account has no access to:

accesschk -kns austin\mruss hklm\software

To see the security on the HKLM\Software key:

accesschk -k hklm\software

To see all files under \Users\Mark on Vista that have an explicit integrity level:

accesschk -e -s c:\users\mark

To see all global objects that Everyone can modify:

accesschk -wuo everyone \basednamedobjects

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 AccessEnum v1.32
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download AccessEnum (51 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
While the flexible security model employed by Windows NT-based systems allows full control over security and
file permissions, managing permissions so that users have appropriate access to files, directories and Registry
keys can be difficult. There's no built-in way to quickly view user accesses to a tree of directories or keys.
AccessEnum gives you a full view of your file system and Registry security settings in seconds, making it the
ideal tool for helping you find security holes and lock down permissions where necessary.

How It Works
AccessEnum uses standard Windows security APIs to populate its listview with read, write and deny access
information.

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 CacheSet v1.0
3/24/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download CacheSet (44 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
CacheSet is an applet that allows you to manipulate the working-set parameters of the system file cache. Unlike
CacheMan, CacheSet runs on all versions of NT and will work without modifications on new Service Pack
releases. In addition to providing you the ability to control the minimum and maximum working set sizes, it also
allows you to reset the Cache's working set, forcing it to grow as necessary from a minimal starting point. Also
unlike CacheMan, changes made with CacheSet have an immediate effect on the size of the Cache.
Use CacheSet to performance tune the system Cache size in a way not possible without tweaking internal
variables the way CacheMan does.
Note: To use CacheSet on NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 and later you must have the "Increase Quota" privilege
(administrator accounts have this privilege by default). CacheSet has been updated to enable this privilege so
that it works on SP4.

Installation and Use

After it starts it presents the system file cache's current size (updated twice a second), it's peak size (the largest
it's been since the last reboot), and lets you set new minimum and maximum working set sizes.
Setting New Sizes Simply enter the new minimum and maximum sizes and hit the Apply button. If you get an
error, then one of the following conditions holds: you've entered a maximum that is smaller than the minimum,
the minimum you've entered is smaller than the minimum system working-set size, or the maximum you've
entered is larger than the maximum system working-set sizes. Adjust the values you've entered and try again.
You may notice that the Cache's size changes immediately and then proceeds to shrink or grow quickly. This is
because the system automatically trims working sets once a second. The Cache pages that are released are still
in memory, but can be relinquished quickly for use by other programs that need more memory. Similarly, the
Cache can eaily regain pages as applications access file system data.
Resetting Previous Values At any time you can restore the Cache's working set values that were active when
you last started CacheSet by hitting the Reset button.
Clearing the Cache's Working Set You can force the Cache to release all of it's pages by pressing the Clear
button. Note that the Cache can grow again as necessary, and that this is not the same as flushing the Cache -
pages that were assigned to it are simply made available to other programs and can be reclaimed by the Cache.
Using the Command-Line Interface You can enter the minimum and maximum working set sizes on
CacheSet's command line. CacheSet will apply these new values silently. Thus, you can add CacheSet to your
Start program group to automatically set the Cache's sizes every time you boot.
Usage: CacheSet [minimum working set] [maximum working set]

How It Works
CacheSet uses a NtQuer ySystemInformation call to obtain information about the Cache's settings and
NtSetSystemInformation to set new sizing information. The working-set information for a process serves as
guidelines for NT's Memory Manager regarding how many pages of physical memory should be assigned to
the application. Because they are guidelines, conditions can result such that the Memory Manager grows a
working-set to a size greater than the maximum, or shrinks it to less than the minimum. However, the settings
are factors that will affect the overall allocation, and hence responsiveness, of an application. In the case of
CacheSet the application is the file system Cache.
Internally NtSetSystemInformation calls MmAdjustWorkingSetSize , which either grows an application's
working set or trims it. If the third parameter passed to MmAdjustWorkingSetSize is 1, the system Cache's
working set is adjusted, otherwise the adjustment occurs on the current process (the system information calls
affect only the system cache). Passing in a minimum and maximum of -1 causes MmAjustWorkingSetSize to
perform a working-set clear operation, releasing all pages from the application's working set.

Download CacheSet (44 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 Contig v1.8
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download Contig (241 KB)

Introduction
There are a number of NT disk defraggers on the market, including Winternals Defrag Manager. These tools are
useful for performing a general defragmentation of disks, but while most files are defragmented on drives
processed by these utilities, some files may not be. In addition, it is difficult to ensure that particular files that are
frequently used are defragmented - they may remain fragmented for reasons that are specific to the
defragmentation algorithms used by the defragging product that has been applied. Finally, even if all files have
been defragmented, subsequent changes to critical files could cause them to become fragmented. Only by
running an entire defrag operation can one hope that they might be defragmented again.
Contig is a single-file defragmenter that attempts to make files contiguous on disk. Its perfect for quickly
optimizing files that are continuously becoming fragmented, or that you want to ensure are in as few fragments
as possible.

Using Contig
Contig is a utility that defragments a specified file or files. Use it to optimize execution of your frequently used
files.
Usage:
\src\Contig\Release\Contig.exe [-a] [-s] [-q] [-v] [existing file]
or \src\Contig\Release\Contig.exe [-f ] [-q] [-v] [drive:]
or \src\Contig\Release\Contig.exe [-v] [-l] -n [new file] [new file length]

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-a Analyze fragmentation

-f Analyze free space fragmentation

-l Set valid data length for quick file creation (requires

administrator rights)

-q Quiet mode

-s Recurse subdirectories

-v Verbose

Contig can also analyze and defragment the following NTFS metadata files:
 $Mft
$LogFile
$Volume
$AttrDef
$Bitmap
$Boot
$BadClus
$Secure
$UpCase
$Extend

How it Works
Contig uses the native Windows NT defragmentation support that was introduced with NT 4.0 (see my
documentation of the defrag APIs for more information). It first scans the disk collecting the locations and sizes
of free areas. Then it determines where the file in question is located. Next, Contig decides whether the file can
be optimized, based on free areas and the number of fragments the file currently consists of. If the file can be
optimized, it is moved into the free spaces of the disk.

More Information
Helen Custer's Inside Windows NT provides a good overview of the Object Manager name space, and Mark's
October 1997 Windows NT Magazine column,"Inside the Object Manager", is (of course) an excellent overview.

Download Contig (241 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Disk2vhd v2.01
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: January 21, 2014

Download Disk2vhd (879 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of
physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference
between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online.
Disk2vhd uses Windows' Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-
time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the
VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk
different than ones being converted).
The Disk2vhd user interface lists the volumes present on the system:

It will create one VHD for each disk on which selected volumes reside. It preserves the partitioning information
of the disk, but only copies the data contents for volumes on the disk that are selected. This enables you to
capture just system volumes and exclude data volumes, for example.

Virtual PC supports a maximum virtual disk size of 127GB. If you create a VHD from a larger disk it will not
be accessible from a Virtual PC VM.

To use VHDs produced by Disk2vhd, create a VM with the desired characteristics and add the VHDs to the VM's
configuration as IDE disks. On first boot, a VM booting a captured copy of Windows will detect the VM's
hardware and automatically install drivers, if present in the image. If the required drivers are not present, install
them via the Virtual PC or Hyper-V integration components. You can also attach to VHDs using the Windows 7
or Windows Server 2008 R2 Disk Management or Diskpart utilities.

Do not attach to VHDs on the same system on which you created them if you plan on booting from them. If
you do so, Windows will assign the VHD a new disk signature to avoid a collision with the signature of the
VHD’s source disk. Windows references disks in the boot configuration database (BCD) by disk signature, so
 when that happens Windows booted in a VM will fail to locate the boot disk.
Disk2vhd does not support the conversion of volumes with Bitlocker enabled. If you wish to create a VHD
for such a volume, turn off Bitlocker and wait for the volume to be fully decrypted first.

Disk2vhd runs on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and higher, including x64 systems.
Here's a screenshot of a copy of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V system running in a virtual machine on top
of the system it was made from:

(click image to zoom)

Command Line Usage

Disk2vhd includes command-line options that enable you to script the creation of VHDs. Specify the volumes
you want included in a snapshot by drive letter (e.g. c:) or use "*" to include all volumes.
Usage: disk2vhd <[drive: [drive:]...]|[*]> <vhdfile>
Example: disk2vhd * c:\vhd\snapshot.vhd

Physical-to-virtual hard drive migration of a Windows installation is a valid function for customers with
Software Assurance and full retail copies of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Software
Assurance provides users valuable benefits—please contact Microsoft Corporation for further information.
Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 installed by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) using
OEM versions of these products may not be transferred to a virtual hard drive in accordance with Microsoft
licensing terms.

Download Disk2vhd (879 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 DiskExt v1.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download DiskExt (498 KB)

Introduction
DiskExt demonstrates the use of the IOCTL_VOLUME_GET_VOLUME_DISK_EXTENTS command that returns
information about what disks the partitions of a volume are located on (multipartition disks can reside on
multiple disks) and where on the disk the partitions are located.

Download DiskExt (498 KB)

 DiskMon for Windows v2.01
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download Diskmon (80 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
DiskMon is an application that logs and displays all hard disk activity on a Windows system. You can also
minimize DiskMon to your system tray where it acts as a disk light, presenting a green icon when there is disk-
read activity and a red icon when there is disk-write activity.

Installation and Use

Installing DiskMon is as easy as unzipping it and typing, "diskmon." The menus and toolbar buttons can be used
to disable event capturing, control the scrolling of the listview, and to save the listview contents to an ASCII file.
To have DiskMon function as a disk light in your system tray, select the Options|Minimize to Tray menu item, or
start DiskMon with a "/l" (lower-case L) command-line switch e.g. diskmon /l. To reactivate the DiskMon window
double-click on the DiskMon tray icon. To create a shortcut to Diskmon in the tray create a shortcut in your
Program Files\Startup folder, edit the properties of the shortcut and set the Target to point at the executable with
the path in quotations and the switch outside the quotes:
"C:\Sysinternals Tools\Diskmon.exe" /l
Read and write offsets are presented in terms of sectors (512 bytes). Events can be either timed for their
duration (in microseconds), or stamped with the absolute time that they were initiated. The History Depth dialog
can be used to specify the maximum number of records that will be kept in the GUI (0 signifies no limit).

Implementation
DiskMon uses kernel event tracing. Event tracing is documented in the Microsoft Platform SDK and the SDK
contains source code to TraceDmp, on which DiskMon is based.

Download Diskmon (80 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Disk Usage v1.62
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 04, 2020

] Download Du (1.62 MB)

Introduction
Du (disk usage) reports the disk space usage for the directory you specify. By default it recurses directories to
show the total size of a directory and its subdirectories.

Using Disk Usage (DU)

Usage: du [-c[t]] [-l <levels> | -n | -v] [-u] [-q] <director y>

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-c Print output as CSV. Use -ct for tab delimiting.

-l Specify subdirectory depth of information (default is all

levels).

-n Do not recurse.

-v Show size (in KB) of intermediate directories.

-u Count each instance of a hardlinked file.

-q Quiet (no banner).

CSV output is formatted as:

Path, CurrentFileCount, CurrentFileSize, FileCount, DirectoryCount, DirectorySize

Download Du (1.62 MB)

 DiskView v2.41
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: October 15, 2020

Download DiskView (800 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
DiskView shows you a graphical map of your disk, allowing you to determine where a file is located or, by
clicking on a cluster, seeing which file occupies it. Double-click to get more information about a file to which a
cluster is allocated.

Download DiskView (800 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 EFSDump v1.02
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download EFSDump (39 KB)

Introduction
Windows 2000 introduces the Encrypting File System (EFS) so that users can protect their sensitive data. Several
new APIs make their debut to support this facility, including one-QueryUsersOnEncryptedFile-that lets you see
who has access to encrypted files. This applet uses the API to show you what accounts are authorized to access
encrypted files.

Using EFSDump
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-s Recurse subdirectories.

EFSDump takes wildcards e.g. 'efsdump *.txt'.

Download EFSDump (39 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 LDMDump v1.02
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download LDMDump (43 KB)

Introduction
Windows 2000 introduces a new type of disk partitioning scheme that is managed by a component called the
Logical Disk Manager (LDM). Basic disks implement standard DOS-style partition tables, whereas Dynamic disks
use LDM partitioning. LDM partitioning offers several advantages over DOS partitioning including replication
across disks, on-disk storage of advanced volume configuration (spanned volume, mirrored volumes, striped
volumes and RAID-5 volumes). My March/April two-part series on Windows NT/2000 storage management in
Windows 2000 Magazine describes the details of each partitioning scheme.
Other than the Disk Management MMC-snapin and a tool called dmdiag in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit,
there are no tools for investigating the internals of the LDM on-disk database that describes a system's
partitioning layout. LDMDump is a utility that lets you examine exactly what is stored in a disk's copy of the
system LDM database. LDMDump shows you the contents of the LDM database private header, table-of-
contents, and object database (where partition, component and volume definitions are stored), and then
summarizes its finding with partition table and volume listings.

Installing and Using LDMDump

To use LDMDump simply pass it the identifier of a disk.
Usage: ldmdump [- ] [-d#]

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- Displays the supported options and the units of

measurement used for output values.

-d# Specifies the number of the disk for LDMDump to examine.

For example, "ldmdump /d0" has LDMDump show the LDM
database information stored on disk 0.

How it Works
There are no published APIs available for obtaining detailed information about a disk's LDM partitioning, and
the LDM database format is completely undocumented. LDMDump was developed based on study of LDM
database contents on a variety of different systems and under changing conditions.

More Information
For more information on the LDM on-disk structure, see:
Inside Storage Management, Part 2, by Mark Russinovich, Windows 2000 Magazine, April 2000.
 Download LDMDump (43 KB)
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PendMoves v1.02 and MoveFile v1.01
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich Published: July 4, 2016

Download PendMovesand MoveFile (988 KB)

Introduction
There are several applications, such as service packs and hotfixes, that must replace a file that's in use and is
unable to. Windows therefore provides the MoveFileEx API to rename or delete a file and allows the caller to
specify that they want the operation to take place the next time the system boots,before the files are referenced.
Session Manager performs this task by reading the registered rename and delete commands from the
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations value.

PendMoves Usage
This applet dumps the contents of the pending rename/delete value and also reports an error when the source
file is notaccessible.
Usage: pendmoves
Here is example output that shows a temporary installation file is scheduled for deletion at the next reboot:

C:\\>pendmoves
PendMove v1.2
Copyright (C) 2013 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Source: C:\\Config.Msi\\3ec7bbbf.rbf
Target: DELETE

MoveFile usage
The included MoveFile utililty allows you to schedule move and delete commands for the next reboot: usage:
movefile [source] [dest]
Specifying an empty destination ("") deletes the source at boot. An example that deletes test.exe is:

movefile test.exe ""

Download PendMovesand MoveFile (988 KB)

 NTFSInfo v1.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download NTFSInfo (143 KB)

Introduction
NTFSInfo is a little applet that shows you information about NTFS volumes. Its dump includes the size of a
drive's allocation units, where key NTFS files are located, and the sizes of the NTFS metadata files on the volume.
This information is typically of little more than curiosity value, but NTFSInfo does show some interesting things.
For example, you've probably heard about the NTFS equivalent of the FAT file system's File Allocation Table. Its
called the Master File Table (MFT), and it is made up of constant sized records that describe the location of all the
files and directories on the drive. What's surprising about the MFT is that it is managed as a file, just like any
other. NTFSInfo will show you where on the disk (in terms of clusters) the MFT is located and how large it is, in
addition to specifying how large the volume's clusters and MFT records are. In order to protect the MFT from
fragmentation, NTFS reserves a portion of the disk around the MFT that it will not allocate to other files unless
disk space runs low. This area is known as the MFT-Zone and NTFSInfo will tell you where on the disk the MFT-
Zone is located and what percentage of the drive is reserved for it.
You might also be surprised to know that like the MFT, all NTFS meta-data are managed in files. For instance,
there is a file called $Boot that is mapped to cover the drive's boot sector. The volume's cluster map is
maintained in another file named $Bitmap. These files reside right in the NTFS root directory, but you can't see
them unless you know they are there. Try typing "dir /ah $boot" at the root directory of an NTFS volume and
you'll actually see the $boot file. NTFSInfo performs the equivalent of the "dir /ah" to show you the names and
sizes of all of NTFS (3.51 and 4.0) meta-data files.
NTFSInfo is intended to accompany my January 1998 Windows NT Magazine "NT Internals" column, which
describes NTFS internal data structures.

Installation and Usage

NTFSInfo works on all versions of NTFS, but NTFS for Windows NT 5.0 has different meta-data files that
NTFSInfo has not been programmed for yet. In order for NTFSInfo to work you must have administrative
privilege.
Usage: NTFSInfo x

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x The drive letter of the NTFS volume that you want to

examine.

How It Works
NTFSInfo uses an undocumented File System Control (FSCTL) call to obtain information from NTFS about a
volume. It prints this information along with a directory dump of NTFS meta-data files.
 Download NTFSInfo (143 KB)
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 PageDefrag v2.32
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download PageDefrag (70 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
One of the limitations of the Windows NT/2000 defragmentation interface is that it is not possible to
defragment files that are open for exclusive access. Thus, standard defragmentation programs can neither show
you how fragmented your paging files or Registry hives are, nor defragment them. Paging and Registry file
fragmentation can be one of the leading causes of performance degradation related to file fragmentation in a
system.
PageDefrag uses advanced techniques to provide you what commercial defragmenters cannot: the ability for
you to see how fragmented your paging files and Registry hives are, and to defragment them. In addition, it
defragments event log files and Windows 2000/XP hibernation files (where system memory is saved when you
hibernate a laptop).

Installing and Using PageDefrag

When you run PageDefrag (pagedfrg.exe) you will be presented a listbox that tells you how many clusters make
up your paging files, event log files, and Registry hives (SAM, SYSTEM, SYSTEM.ALT, SECURITY, SOFTWARE,
.DEFAULT), as well as how many fragments those files are in. If you feel that these files are fragmented enough
to warrant a shot at defragmenting them, or if you want to defragment them at every boot, select the
appropriate radio button choice and click OK.

When you direct PageDefrag to defragment, the next time the system boots it will attempt to do so. Immediately
after CHKDSK examines your hard drives PageDefrag uses the standard file defragmentation APIs (see my Inside
Windows NT Disk Defragmenting page for documentation of these APIs) to defragment the files. As it processes
each file PageDefrag will print on the boot-time startup screen the file name and its success at defragmenting it.
If it is successful at reducing the fragmentation it will tell you the number of clusters the file started with and the
number it consists of after the defragmentation.
In some cases PageDefrag may be unable to reduce fragmentation on one or more of the files, and it will
indicate so on the boot-time Blue Screen. This can happen either because there is not enough space on the drive
for defragmentation, or the free space itself is highly fragmented. For the best results you should use
PageDefrag in conjunction with a commercial defragmentation utility or my free Contig defragmenter.

Command-Line Options
You can run PageDefrag non-interactively by specifying a command-line option for the setting you want:
Usage: pagedfrg [-e | -o | -n] [-t <seconds>]

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-e Defrag every boot.

-o Defrag once.

-n Never defrag.

-t Set countdown to specified number of seconds.

Download PageDefrag (70 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 PendMoves v1.02 and MoveFile v1.01
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich Published: July 4, 2016

Download PendMovesand MoveFile (988 KB)

Introduction
There are several applications, such as service packs and hotfixes, that must replace a file that's in use and is
unable to. Windows therefore provides the MoveFileEx API to rename or delete a file and allows the caller to
specify that they want the operation to take place the next time the system boots,before the files are referenced.
Session Manager performs this task by reading the registered rename and delete commands from the
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations value.

PendMoves Usage
This applet dumps the contents of the pending rename/delete value and also reports an error when the source
file is notaccessible.
Usage: pendmoves
Here is example output that shows a temporary installation file is scheduled for deletion at the next reboot:

C:\\>pendmoves
PendMove v1.2
Copyright (C) 2013 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Source: C:\\Config.Msi\\3ec7bbbf.rbf
Target: DELETE

MoveFile usage
The included MoveFile utililty allows you to schedule move and delete commands for the next reboot: usage:
movefile [source] [dest]
Specifying an empty destination ("") deletes the source at boot. An example that deletes test.exe is:

movefile test.exe ""

Download PendMovesand MoveFile (988 KB)

 RegMon for Windows v7.04
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006
RegMon and FileMon are no longer available for download. They have been replaced by Process Monitor on
versions of Windows starting with Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and
Windows Vista.

Related Utilities
Here are some other monitoring tools available at Sysinternals:
PortMon - a serial and parallel port monitor
Process Monitor - a process and thread monitor
DiskMon - a hard disk monitor
DebugView - a debug output monitor
 SDelete v2.04
3/24/2021 • 6 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 25, 2020

Download SDelete (518 KB)

Introduction
One feature of Windows NT/2000's (Win2K) C2-compliance is that it implements object reuse protection. This
means that when an application allocates file space or virtual memory it is unable to view data that was
previously stored in the resources Windows NT/2K allocates for it. Windows NT zero-fills memory and zeroes
the sectors on disk where a file is placed before it presents either type of resource to an application. However,
object reuse does not dictate that the space that a file occupies before it is deleted be zeroed. This is because
Windows NT/2K is designed with the assumption that the operating system controls access to system resources.
However, when the operating system is not active it is possible to use raw disk editors and recovery tools to
view and recover data that the operating system has deallocated. Even when you encrypt files with Win2K's
Encrypting File System (EFS), a file's original unencrypted file data is left on the disk after a new encrypted
version of the file is created.
The only way to ensure that deleted files, as well as files that you encrypt with EFS, are safe from recovery is to
use a secure delete application. Secure delete applications overwrite a deleted file's on-disk data using
techniques that are shown to make disk data unrecoverable, even using recovery technology that can read
patterns in magnetic media that reveal weakly deleted files. SDelete (Secure Delete) is such an application. You
can use SDelete both to securely delete existing files, as well as to securely erase any file data that exists in the
unallocated portions of a disk (including files that you have already deleted or encrypted). SDelete implements
the Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DOD 5220.22-M, to give you confidence that once
deleted with SDelete, your file data is gone forever. Note that SDelete securely deletes file data, but not file
names located in free disk space.

Using SDelete
SDelete is a command line utility that takes a number of options. In any given use, it allows you to delete one or
more files and/or directories, or to cleanse the free space on a logical disk. SDelete accepts wild card characters
as part of the directory or file specifier.
Usage: sdelete [-p passes] [-r] [-s] [-q] <file or director y> [...]
sdelete [-p passes] [-z|-c [percent free]] <drive letter [...]> sdelete [-p passes] [-z|-c] &ltphysical
disk number>

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-c Clean free space. Specify an option amount of space to leave

free for use by a running system.

-p Specifies number of overwrite passes (default is 1).

-r Remove Read-Only attribute.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-s Recurse subdirectories.

-z Zero free space (good for virtual disk optimization).

-nobanner Do not display the startup banner and copyright message.

How SDelete Works

Securely deleting a file that has no special attributes is relatively straight-forward: the secure delete program
simply overwrites the file with the secure delete pattern. What is more tricky is securely deleting Windows
NT/2K compressed, encrypted and sparse files, and securely cleansing disk free spaces.
Compressed, encrypted and sparse are managed by NTFS in 16-cluster blocks. If a program writes to an existing
portion of such a file NTFS allocates new space on the disk to store the new data and after the new data has
been written, deallocates the clusters previously occupied by the file. NTFS takes this conservative approach for
reasons related to data integrity, and in the case of compressed and sparse files, in case a new allocation is
larger than what exists (the new compressed data is bigger than the old compressed data). Thus, overwriting
such a file will not succeed in deleting the file's contents from the disk.
To handle these types of files SDelete relies on the defragmentation API. Using the defragmentation API, SDelete
can determine precisely which clusters on a disk are occupied by data belonging to compressed, sparse and
encrypted files. Once SDelete knows which clusters contain the file's data, it can open the disk for raw access and
overwrite those clusters.
Cleaning free space presents another challenge. Since FAT and NTFS provide no means for an application to
directly address free space, SDelete has one of two options. The first is that it can, like it does for compressed,
sparse and encrypted files, open the disk for raw access and overwrite the free space. This approach suffers
from a big problem: even if SDelete were coded to be fully capable of calculating the free space portions of
NTFS and FAT drives (something that's not trivial), it would run the risk of collision with active file operations
taking place on the system. For example, say SDelete determines that a cluster is free, and just at that moment
the file system driver (FAT, NTFS) decides to allocate the cluster for a file that another application is modifying.
The file system driver writes the new data to the cluster, and then SDelete comes along and overwrites the
freshly written data: the file's new data is gone. The problem is even worse if the cluster is allocated for file
system metadata since SDelete will corrupt the file system's on-disk structures.
The second approach, and the one SDelete takes, is to indirectly overwrite free space. First, SDelete allocates the
largest file it can. SDelete does this using non-cached file I/O so that the contents of the NT file system cache will
not be thrown out and replaced with useless data associated with SDelete's space-hogging file. Because non-
cached file I/O must be sector (512-byte) aligned, there might be some leftover space that isn't allocated for the
SDelete file even when SDelete cannot further grow the file. To grab any remaining space SDelete next allocates
the largest cached file it can. For both of these files SDelete performs a secure overwrite, ensuring that all the
disk space that was previously free becomes securely cleansed.
On NTFS drives SDelete's job isn't necessarily through after it allocates and overwrites the two files. SDelete
must also fill any existing free portions of the NTFS MFT (Master File Table) with files that fit within an MFT
record. An MFT record is typically 1KB in size, and every file or directory on a disk requires at least one MFT
record. Small files are stored entirely within their MFT record, while files that don't fit within a record are
allocated clusters outside the MFT. All SDelete has to do to take care of the free MFT space is allocate the largest
file it can - when the file occupies all the available space in an MFT Record NTFS will prevent the file from getting
larger, since there are no free clusters left on the disk (they are being held by the two files SDelete previously
allocated). SDelete then repeats the process. When SDelete can no longer even create a new file, it knows that all
the previously free records in the MFT have been completely filled with securely overwritten files.
To overwrite file names of a file that you delete, SDelete renames the file 26 times, each time replacing each
character of the file's name with a successive alphabetic character. For instance, the first rename of "foo.txt"
would be to "AAA.AAA".
The reason that SDelete does not securely delete file names when cleaning disk free space is that deleting them
would require direct manipulation of directory structures. Directory structures can have free space containing
deleted file names, but the free directory space is not available for allocation to other files. Hence, SDelete has
no way of allocating this free space so that it can securely overwrite it.

Download SDelete (518 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Sigcheck v2.81
5/25/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: May 25, 2021

Download Sigcheck (1.2 MB)

Introduction
Sigcheck is a command-line utility that shows file version number, timestamp information, and digital signature
details, including certificate chains. It also includes an option to check a file’s status on VirusTotal, a site that
performs automated file scanning against over 40 antivirus engines, and an option to upload a file for scanning.
usage: sigcheck [-a][-h][-i][-e][-l][-n][[-s]|[-c|-ct]|[-m]][-q][-r][-u][-vt][-v[r][s]][-f catalog file] <file
or director y>
usage: sigcheck -d [-c|-ct] <file or director y>
usage: sigcheck -o [-vt][-v[r]] <sigcheck csv file>
usage: sigcheck -t[u][v] [-i] [-c|-ct] <cer tificate store name|*>

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-a Show extended version information. The entropy measure

reported is the bits per byte of information of the file's
contents.

-accepteula Silently accept the Sigcheck EULA (no interactive prompt)

-c CSV output with comma delimiter

-ct CSV output with tab delimiter

-d Dump contents of a catalog file

-e Scan executable images only (regardless of their extension)

-f Look for signature in the specified catalog file

-h Show file hashes

-i Show catalog name and signing chain

-l Traverse symbolic links and directory junctions

-m Dump manifest

-n Only show file version number

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-o Performs Virus Total lookups of hashes captured in a CSV file

previously captured by Sigcheck when using the -h option.
This usage is intended for scans of offline systems.

-nobanner Quiet (no banner)

-r Disable check for certificate revocation

-p Verify signatures against the specified policy, represented by

its GUID.

-s Recurse subdirectories

-t[u][v] Dump contents of specified certificate store ('*' for all stores).
Specify -tu to query the user store (machine store is the
default).
Append '-v' to have Sigcheck download the trusted
Microsoft root certificate list and only output valid
certificates not rooted to a certificate on that list. If the site
is not accessible, authrootstl.cab or authroot.stl in the
current directory are used instead, if present.

-u If VirusTotal check is enabled, show files that are unknown by

VirusTotal or have non-zero detection, otherwise show only
unsigned files.

-v[rs] Query VirusTotal (www.virustotal.com) for malware based on

file hash.
Add 'r' to open reports for files with non-zero detection.
Files reported as not previously scanned will be uploaded to
VirusTotal if the 's' option is specified. Note scan results may
not be available for five or more minutes.

-vt Before using VirusTotal features, you must accept VirusTotal

terms of service. See:
https://www.virustotal.com/en/about/terms-of-service/ If
you haven't accepted the terms and you omit this option,
you will be interactively prompted.

One way to use the tool is to check for unsigned files in your \Windows\System32 directories with this
command:
sigcheck -u -e c:\windows\system32
You should investigate the purpose of any files that are not signed.

Download Sigcheck (1.2 MB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher

Learn More
Malware Hunting with the Sysinternals Tools
In this presentation, Mark shows how to use the Sysinternals tools to identify, analyze and clean malware.
 Streams v1.6
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download Streams (499 KB)

Introduction
The NTFS file system provides applications the ability to create alternate data streams of information. By default,
all data is stored in a file's main unnamed data stream, but by using the syntax 'file:stream', you are able to read
and write to alternates. Not all applications are written to access alternate streams, but you can demonstrate
streams very simply. First, change to a directory on a NTFS drive from within a command prompt. Next, type
'echo hello > test:stream'. You've just created a stream named 'stream' that is associated with the file 'test'. Note
that when you look at the size of test it is reported as 0, and the file looks empty when opened in any text editor.
To see your stream enter 'more < test:stream' (the type command doesn't accept stream syntax so you have to
use more).
NT does not come with any tools that let you see which NTFS files have streams associated with them, so I've
written one myself. Streams will examine the files and directories (note that directories can also have alternate
data streams) you specify and inform you of the name and sizes of any named streams it encounters within
those files. Streams makes use of an undocumented native function for retrieving file stream information.

Using Streams
Usage: streams [-s] [-d] <file or director y>

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-s Recurse subdirectories.

-d Delete streams.

Streams takes wildcards e.g. 'streams *.txt'.

Download Streams (499 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Sync v2.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download Sync (500 KB)

Introduction
UNIX provides a standard utility called Sync, which can be used to direct the operating system to flush all file
system data to disk in order to insure that it is stable and won't be lost in case of a system failure. Otherwise,
any modified data present in the cache would be lost. Here is an equivalent that I wrote, called Sync, that works
on all versions of Windows. Use it whenever you want to know that modified file data is safely stored on your
hard drives. Unfortunately, Sync requires administrative privileges to run. This version also lets you flush
removable drives such as ZIP drives.

Using Sync
Usage: sync [-r] [-e] [drive letter list]

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-r Flush removable drives.

-e Ejects removable drives.

Specifying specific drives (e.g. "c e") will result in Sync only flushing those drives.

Download Sync (500 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 VolumeID v2.1
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download VolumeID (194 KB)

Introduction
While Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95 and 98's built-in Label utility lets you change the labels of disk
volumes, it does not provide any means for changing volume ids. This utiltity, VolumeID, allows you to change
the ids of FAT and NTFS disks (floppies or hard drives).
Usage: volumeid <driveletter :> xxxx-xxxx
This is a command-line program that you must run from a command-prompt window.
Note that changes on NTFS volumes won't be visible until the next reboot. In addition, you should shut down
any applications you have running before changing a volume id. NT may become confused and think that the
media (disk) has changed after a FAT volume id has changed and pop up messages indicating that you should
reinsert the original disk (!). It may then fail the disk requests of applications using those drives.

Download VolumeID (194 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Sysinternals Networking Utilities
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

AD Explorer
Active Directory Explorer is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor.
AD Insight
AD Insight is an LDAP (Light-weight Directory Access Protocol) real-time monitoring tool aimed at
troubleshooting Active Directory client applications.
AdRestore
Undelete Server 2003 Active Directory objects.
PipeList
Displays the named pipes on your system, including the number of maximum instances and active instances for
each pipe.
PsFile
See what files are opened remotely.
PsPing
Measures network performance.
PsTools
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
ShareEnum
Scan file shares on your network and view their security settings to close security holes.
TCPView
Active socket command-line viewer.
Whois
See who owns an Internet address.
 Active Directory Explorer v1.50
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 04, 2020

Download AdExplorer (1.2 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD
Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes
without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object's schema, and execute sophisticated
searches that you can save and re-execute.
AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons.
When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explore it as you would a live database. If you have two
snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer's comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes
and security permissions changed between them.

Download AdExplorer (1.2 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Insight for Active Directory v1.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: October 26, 2015

Download AdInsight (3.3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
ADInsight is an LDAP (Light-weight Directory Access Protocol) real-time monitoring tool aimed at
troubleshooting Active Directory client applications. Use its detailed tracing of Active Directory client-server
communications to solve Windows authentication, Exchange, DNS, and other problems.
ADInsight uses DLL injection techniques to intercept calls that applications make in the Wldap32.dll library,
which is the standard library underlying Active Directory APIs such ldap and ADSI. Unlike network monitoring
tools, ADInsight intercepts and interprets all client-side APIs, including those that do not result in transmission to
a server. ADInsight monitors any process into which it can load it’s tracing DLL, which means that it does not
require administrative permissions, however, if run with administrative rights, it will also monitor system
processes, including windows services.

Download AdInsight (3.3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.

Related Links
The Sysinternals AdRestore utility enables you to restore deleted objects on Windows Server 2003 domains.
AD Explorer is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor.
 AdRestore v1.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 25, 2020

Download AdRestore (512 KB)

Introduction
Windows Server 2003 introduces the ability to restore deleted ("tombstoned") objects. This simple command-
line utility enumerates the deleted objects in a domain and gives you the option of restoring each one. Source
code is based on sample code in the Microsoft Platform SDK. This MS KB article describes the use of AdRestore:
840001: How to restore deleted user accounts and their group memberships in Active Directory

Download AdRestore 512 KB)

 PipeList v1.02
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

Published: July 4, 2016

Download PipeList (496 KB)

Introduction
Did you know that the device driver that implements named pipes is actually a file system driver? In fact, the
driver's name is NPFS.SYS, for "Named Pipe File System". What you might also find surprising is that its possible
to obtain a directory listing of the named pipes defined on a system. This fact is not documented, nor is it
possible to do this using the Win32 API. Directly using NtQueryDirectoryFile, the native function that the Win32
FindFile APIs rely on, makes it possible to list the pipes. The directory listing NPFS returns also indicates the
maximum number of pipe instances set for each pipe and the number of active instances.

Download PipeList (496 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 PsFile v1.03
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (1.6 MB)

Introduction
The "net file" command shows you a list of the files that other computers have opened on the system upon
which you execute the command, however it truncates long path names and doesn't let you see that information
for remote systems. PsFile is a command-line utility that shows a list of files on a system that are opened
remotely, and it also allows you to close opened files either by name or by a file identifier.

Installation
Just copy PsFile onto your executable path, and type "psfile".

Using PsFile
The default behavior of PsFile is to list the files on the local system that are open by remote systems. Typing a
command followed by "- " displays information on the syntax for the command.
Usage: psfile [\\RemoteComputer [-u Username [-p Password]]] [[Id | path] [-c]]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p Specifies password for user name. If this is omitted, you will

be prompted to enter the password without it being echoed
to the screen.

Id Identifier (as assigned by PsFile) of the file for which to

display information or to close.

Path Full or partial path of files to match for information display

or close.

-c Closes the files identifed by ID or path.

How it Works
PsFile uses the NET API, which is documented in the Platform SDK.

Download PsTools (1.6 MB)

 PsPing v2.1
3/24/2021 • 4 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
PsPing implements Ping functionality, TCP ping, latency and bandwidth measurement. Use the following
command-line options to show the usage for each test type:

Installation
Copy PsPing onto your executable path. Typing "psping" displays its usage syntax.

Using PsPing
PsPing implements Ping functionality, TCP ping, latency and bandwidth measurement. Use the following
command-line options to show the usage for each test type:
Usage:

psping -? [i|t|l|b\]

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-? I Usage for ICMP ping.

-? T Usage for TCP ping.

-? L Usage for latency test.

-? B Usage for bandwidth test.

ICMP ping usage:

psping [[-6]|[-4]] [-h [buckets | <val1>,<val2>,...]] [-i <interval>] [-l <requestsize>[k|m] [-q] [-t|-n
<count>] [-w <count>] <destination>

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-h Print histogram (default bucket count is 20).

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

If you specify a single argument, it's interpreted as a bucket

count and the histogram will contain that number of buckets
covering the entire time range of values. Specify a comma-
separated list of times to create a custom histogram (e.g.
"0.01,0.05,1,5,10").

-i Interval in seconds. Specify 0 for fast ping.

-l Request size. Append 'k' for kilobytes and 'm' for megabytes.

-n Number of pings or append 's' to specify seconds e.g. '10s'.

-q Don't output during pings.

-t Ping until stopped with Ctrl+C and type Ctrl+Break for

statistics.

-w Warmup with the specified number of iterations (default is

1).

-4 Force using IPv4.

-6 Force using IPv6.

For high-speed ping tests use -q and -i 0.

TCP ping usage:

psping [[-6]|[-4]] [-h [buckets | <val1>,<val2>,...]] [-i <interval>] [-l <requestsize>[k|m] [-q] [-t|-n
<count>] [-w <count>] <destination:destport>

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-h Print histogram (default bucket count is 20).

If you specify a single argument, it's interpreted as a bucket

count and the histogram will contain that number of buckets
covering the entire time range of values. Specify a comma-
separated list of times to create a custom histogram (e.g.
"0.01,0.05,1,5,10").

-i Interval in seconds. Specify 0 for fast ping.

-l Request size. Append 'k' for kilobytes and 'm' for megabytes.

-n Number of pings or append 's' to specify seconds e.g. '10s'.

-q Don't output during pings.

-t Ping until stopped with Ctrl+C and type Ctrl+Break for

statistics.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-w Warmup with the specified number of iterations (default is

1).

-4 Force using IPv4.

-6 Force using IPv6.

For high-speed ping tests use -q and -i 0.

TCP and UDP latency usage:
ser ver :

psping [[-6]|[-4]] [-f] <-s source:sourceport>

client:

psping [[-6]|[-4]] [-f] [-u] [-h [buckets | <val1>,<val2>,...]] [-r] <-l requestsize>[k|m]] <-n count> [-w
<count>] <destination:destport>

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-f Open source firewall port during the run.

-u UDP (default is TCP).

-h Print histogram (default bucket count is 20).

If you specify a single argument, it's interpreted as a bucket

count and the histogram will contain that number of buckets
covering the entire time range of values. Specify a comma-
separated list of times to create a custom histogram (e.g.
"0.01,0.05,1,5,10").

-l Request size. Append 'k' for kilobytes and 'm' for megabytes.

-n Number of sends/receives. Append 's' to specify seconds e.g.

'10s'

-r Receive from the server instead of sending.

-w Warmup with the specified number of iterations (default is

5).

-4 Force using IPv4.

-6 Force using IPv6.

-s Server listening address and port.

The server can serve both latency and bandwidth tests and remains active until you terminate it with Control-C.
TCP and UDP bandwidth usage:
ser ver :

psping [[-6]|[-4]] [-f] <-s source:sourceport>

client:

psping [[-6]|[-4]] [-f] [-u] [-h [buckets | <val1>,<val2>,...]] [-r] <-l requestsize>[k|m]] <-n count> [-i
<outstanding>] [-w <count>] <destination:destport>

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-f Open source firewall port during the run.

-u UDP (default is TCP).

-b Bandwidth test.

-h Print histogram (default bucket count is 20).

If you specify a single argument, it's interpreted as a bucket

count and the histogram will contain that number of buckets
covering the entire time range of values. Specify a comma-
separated list of times to create a custom histogram (e.g.
"0.01,0.05,1,5,10").

-i Number of outstanding I/Os (default is min of 16 and 2x

CPU cores).

-l Request size. Append 'k' for kilobytes and 'm' for megabytes.

-n Number of sends/receives. Append 's' to specify seconds e.g.

'10s'

-r Receive from the server instead of sending.

-w Warmup for the specified iterations (default is 2x CPU cores).

-4 Force using IPv4.

-6 Force using IPv6.

-s Server listening address and port.

The server can serve both latency and bandwidth tests and remains active until you terminate it with Control-C.

Examples
This command executes an ICMP ping test for 10 iterations with 3 warmup iterations:

psping -n 10 -w 3 marklap
To execute a TCP connect test, specify the port number. The following command executes connect attempts
against the target as quickly as possible, only printing a summary when finished with the 100 iterations and 1
warmup iteration:

psping -n 100 -i 0 -q marklap:80

To configure a server for latency and bandwidth tests, simply specify the -s option and the source address and
port the server will bind to:

psping -s 192.168.2.2:5000

A buffer size is required to perform a TCP latency test. This example measures the round trip latency of sending
an 8KB packet to the target server, printing a histogram with 100 buckets when completed:

psping -l 8k -n 10000 -h 100 192.168.2.2:5000

This command tests bandwidth to a PsPing server listening at the target IP address for 10 seconds and produces
a histogram with 100 buckets. Note that the test must run for at least one second after warmup for a histogram
to generate. Simply add -u to have PsPing perform a UDP bandwidth test.

psping -b -l 8k -n 10000 -h 100 192.168.2.2:5000

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

 ShareEnum v1.6
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download ShareEnum (94 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
An aspect of Windows NT/2000/XP network security that's often overlooked is file shares. A common security
flaw occurs when users define file shares with lax security, allowing unauthorized users to see sensitive files.
There are no built-in tools to list shares viewable on a network and their security settings, but ShareEnum fills
the void and allows you to lock down file shares in your network.
When you run ShareEnum it uses NetBIOS enumeration to scan all the computers within the domains accessible
to it, showing file and print shares and their security settings. Because only a domain administrator has the
ability to view all network resources, ShareEnum is most effective when you run it from a domain administrator
account.

How It Works
ShareEnum uses WNetEnumResource to enumerate domains and the computers within them and
NetShareEnum to enumerate shares on computers.

Download ShareEnum (94 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 TCPView v4.13
6/22/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 22, 2021

Download TCPView (1.7 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
TCPView is a Windows program that will show you detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your
system, including the local and remote addresses and state of TCP connections. On Windows Server 2008, Vista,
and XP, TCPView also reports the name of the process that owns the endpoint. TCPView provides a more
informative and conveniently presented subset of the Netstat program that ships with Windows. The TCPView
download includes Tcpvcon, a command-line version with the same functionality.

Using TCPView
When you start TCPView it will enumerate all active TCP and UDP endpoints, resolving all IP addresses to their
domain name versions. You can use a toolbar button or menu item to toggle the display of resolved names.
TCPView shows the name of the process that owns each endpoint, including the service name (if any).
By default, TCPView updates every second, but you can use the Options|Refresh Rate menu item to change
the rate. Endpoints that change state from one update to the next are highlighted in yellow; those that are
deleted are shown in red, and new endpoints are shown in green.
You can close established TCP/IP connections (those labeled with a state of ESTABLISHED) by selecting
File|Close Connections , or by right-clicking on a connection and choosing Close Connections from the
resulting context menu.
You can save TCPView's output window to a file using the Save menu item.

Using Tcpvcon
Tcpvcon usage is similar to that of the built-in Windows netstat utility:
Usage:

tcpvcon [-a] [-c] [-n] [process name or PID]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Show all endpoints (default is to show established TCP

connections).

-c Print output as CSV.

-n Don't resolve addresses.

Download TCPView (1.7 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows 8.1 and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2012 and higher.
 Whois v1.21
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: December 11, 2019

Download Whois (585 KB)

Introduction
Whois performs the registration record for the domain name or IP address that you specify.

Usage
Usage: whois [-v] domainname [whois.ser ver]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-v Print whois information for referrals

Domainname can be either a DNS name (e.g. www.sysinternals.com) or IP address (e.g. 66.193.254.46).

Download Whois (585 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Sysinternals Process Utilities
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

Autoruns
See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns
also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.
Handle
This handy command-line utility will show you what files are open by which processes, and much more.
ListDLLs
List all the DLLs that are currently loaded, including where they are loaded and their version numbers. Version
2.0 prints the full path names of loaded modules.
PortMon
Monitor serial and parallel port activity with this advanced monitoring tool. It knows about all standard serial
and parallel IOCTLs and even shows you a portion of the data being sent and received. Version 3.x has powerful
new UI enhancements and advanced filtering capabilities.
ProcDump
This new command-line utility is aimed at capturing process dumps of otherwise difficult to isolate and
reproduce CPU spikes. It also serves as a general process dump creation utility and can also monitor and
generate process dumps when a process has a hung window or unhandled exception.
Process Explorer
Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and
more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.
Process Monitor
Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.
PsExec
Execute processes remotely.
PsGetSid
Displays the SID of a computer or a user.
PsKill
Terminate local or remote processes.
PsList
Show information about processes and threads.
PsService
View and control services.
PsSuspend
Suspend and resume processes.
PsTools
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
ShellRunas
Launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.
VMMap
See a breakdown of a process's committed virtual memory types as well as the amount of physical memory
(working set) assigned by the operating system to those types. Identify the sources of process memory usage
and the memory cost of application features.
 Autoruns for Windows v13.100
4/23/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: April 23, 2021

Download Autoruns and Autorunsc (2.6 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor,
shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and when you start various
built-in Windows applications like Internet Explorer, Explorer and media players. These programs and drivers
include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. Autoruns reports Explorer shell
extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much
more. Autoruns goes way beyond other autostart utilities.
Autoruns' Hide Signed Microsoft Entries option helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images
that have been added to your system and it has support for looking at the auto-starting images configured for
other accounts configured on a system. Also included in the download package is a command-line equivalent
that can output in CSV format, Autorunsc.
You'll probably be surprised at how many executables are launched automatically!

Screenshot

Usage
Simply run Autoruns and it shows you the currently configured auto-start applications as well as the full list of
Registry and file system locations available for auto-start configuration. Autostart locations displayed by
Autoruns include logon entries, Explorer add-ons, Internet Explorer add-ons including Browser Helper Objects
(BHOs), Appinit DLLs, image hijacks, boot execute images, Winlogon notification DLLs, Windows Services and
Winsock Layered Service Providers, media codecs, and more. Switch tabs to view autostarts from different
categories.
To view the properties of an executable configured to run automatically, select it and use the Proper ties menu
item or toolbar button. If Process Explorer is running and there is an active process executing the selected
executable then the Process Explorer menu item in the Entr y menu will open the process properties dialog
box for the process executing the selected image.
Navigate to the Registry or file system location displayed or the configuration of an auto-start item by selecting
the item and using the Jump to Entr y menu item or toolbar button, and navigate to the location of an autostart
image.
To disable an auto-start entry uncheck its check box. To delete an auto-start configuration entry use
the Delete menu item or toolbar button.
The Options menu includes several display filtering options, such as only showing non-Windows entries, as well
as access to a scan options dialog from where you can enable signature verification and Virus Total hash and file
submission.
Select entries in the User menu to view auto-starting images for different user accounts.
More information on display options and additional information is available in the on-line help.

Autorunsc Usage
Autorunsc is the command-line version of Autoruns. Its usage syntax is:
Usage: autorunsc [-a <*|bdeghiklmoprsw>] [-c|-ct] [-h] [-m] [-s] [-u] [-vt] [[-z ] | [user]]]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Autostart entry selection:

* All.

b Boot execute.

d Appinit DLLs.

e Explorer addons.

g Sidebar gadgets (Vista and higher)

h Image hijacks.

i Internet Explorer addons.

k Known DLLs.

l Logon startups (this is the default).

m WMI entries.

n Winsock protocol and network providers.

o Codecs.

p Printer monitor DLLs.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

r LSA security providers.

s Autostart services and non-disabled drivers.

t Scheduled tasks.

w Winlogon entries.

-c Print output as CSV.

-ct Print output as tab-delimited values.

-h Show file hashes.

-m Hide Microsoft entries (signed entries if used with -v).

-s Verify digital signatures.

-t Show timestamps in normalized UTC (YYYYMMDD-

hhmmss).

-u If VirusTotal check is enabled, show files that are unknown by

VirusTotal or have non-zero detection, otherwise show only
unsigned files.

-x Print output as XML.

-v[rs] Query VirusTotal for malware based on file hash. Add 'r' to
open reports for files with non-zero detection. Files reported
as not previously scanned will be uploaded to VirusTotal if
the 's' option is specified. Note scan results may not be
available for five or more minutes.

-vt Before using VirusTotal features, you must accept the

VirusTotal terms of service. If you haven't accepted the terms
and you omit this option, you will be interactively prompted.

-z Specifies the offline Windows system to scan.

user Specifies the name of the user account for which autorun
items will be shown. Specify '*' to scan all user profiles.

Related Links
Windows Internals Book The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows
internals, by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark
Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for
troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Download
 Download Autoruns and Autorunsc (2.6 MB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Handle v4.22
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 14, 2019

Download Handle (887 KB)

Introduction
Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Handle is a utility
that displays information about open handles for any process in the system. You can use it to see the programs
that have a file open, or to see the object types and names of all the handles of a program.
You can also get a GUI-based version of this program, Process Explorer, here at Sysinternals.

Installation
You run Handle by typing "handle". You must have administrative privilege to run Handle.

Usage
Handle is targeted at searching for open file references, so if you do not specify any command-line parameters it
will list the values of all the handles in the system that refer to open files and the names of the files. It also takes
several parameters that modify this behavior.
usage: handle [[-a] [-u] | [-c <handle> [-l] [-y]] | [-s]] [-p <processname>|<pid>> [name]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Dump information about all types of handles, not just those

that refer to files. Other types include ports, Registry keys,
synchronization primitives, threads, and processes.

-c Closes the specified handle (interpreted as a hexadecimal

number). You must specify the process by its PID.
WARNING: Closing handles can cause application or system
instability.

-l Dump the sizes of pagefile-backed sections.

-y Don't prompt for close handle confirmation.

-s Print count of each type of handle open.

-u Show the owning user name when searching for handles.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-p Instead of examining all the handles in the system, this

parameter narrows Handle's scan to those processes that
begin with the name process. Thus:
handle -p exp
would dump the open files for all processes that start with
"exp", which would include Explorer.

name This parameter is present so that you can direct Handle to

search for references to an object with a particular name.
For example, if you wanted to know which process (if any)
has "c:\windows\system32" open you could type:
handle windows\system
The name match is case-insensitive and the fragment
specified can be anywhere in the paths you are interested in.

Handle Output
When not in search mode (enabled by specifying a name fragment as a parameter), Handle divides its output
into sections for each process it is printing handle information for. Dashed lines are used as a separator,
immediately below which you will see the process name and its process id (PID). Beneath the process name are
listed handle values (in hexadecimal), the type of object the handle is associated with, and the name of the object
if it has one.
When in search mode, Handle prints the process names and id's are listed on the left side and the names of the
objects that had a match are on the right.

More Information
You can find more information on the Object Manager in Windows Internals, 4th Edition or by browsing the
Object Manager name-space with WinObj.

Download Handle (887 KB)

 ListDLLs v3.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download ListDLLs (307 KB)

Introduction
ListDLLs is a utility that reports the DLLs loaded into processes. You can use it to list all DLLs loaded into all
processes, into a specific process, or to list the processes that have a particular DLL loaded. ListDLLs can also
display full version information for DLLs, including their digital signature, and can be used to scan processes for
unsigned DLLs.

Usage
listdlls [-r] [-v | -u] [processname|pid]
listdlls [-r] [-v] [-d dllname]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

processname Dump DLLs loaded by process (partial name accepted).

pid Dump DLLs associated with the specified process id.

dllname Show only processes that have loaded the specified DLL.

-r Flag DLLs that relocated because they are not loaded at

their base address.

-u Only list unsigned DLLs.

-v Show DLL version information.

Examples
List the DLLs loaded into Outlook.exe, including their version information:
listdlls -v outlook
List any unsigned DLLs loaded into any process:
listdlls -u
Show processes that have loaded MSO.DLL:
listdlls -d mso.dll

Download ListDLLs (307 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Portmon for Windows v3.03
3/24/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: January 12, 2012

Download Por tmon (226 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Portmon is a utility that monitors and displays all serial and parallel port activity on a system. It has advanced
filtering and search capabilities that make it a powerful tool for exploring the way Windows works, seeing how
applications use ports, or tracking down problems in system or application configurations.

Portmon 3.x
Version 3.x of Portmon marks the introduction of a number of powerful features.
Remote monitoring: Capture kernel-mode and/or Win32 debug output from any computer accessible via
TCP/IP - even across the Internet. You can monitor multiple remote computers simultaneously. Portmon will
even install its client software itself if you are running it on a Windows NT/2K system and are capturing from
another Windows NT/2K system in the same Network Neighborhood.
Most-recent-filter lists:Portmon has been extended with powerful filtering capabilities and it remembers
your most recent filter selections, with an interface that makes it easy to reselect them.
Clipboard copy: Select multiple lines in the output window and copy their contents to the clipboard.
Highlighting: Highlight debug output that matches your highlighting filter, and even customize the
highlighting colors.
Log-to-file: Write debug output to a file as its being captured.
Printing: Print all or part of captured debug output to a printer.
One-file payload:Portmon is now implemented as one file.
The on-line help-file describes all these features, and more, in detail.

Installation and Use

Simply execute the Portmon program file (portmon.exe) and Portmon will immediately start capturing debug
output. To run Portmon on Windows 95 you must get the WinSock2 update from Microsoft. Note that if you run
Portmon on Windows NT/2K portmon.exe must be located on a non-network drive and you must have
administrative privilege. Menus, hot-keys, or toolbar buttons can be used to clear the window, save the
monitored data to a file, search output, change the window font, and more. The on-line help describes all of
Portmon's features.
Portmon understands all serial and parallel port I/O control (IOCTLs) commands and will display them along
with interesting information regarding their associated parameters. For read and write requests Portmon
displays the first several dozen bytes of the buffer, using '.' to represent non-printable characters. The Show Hex
menu option lets you toggle between ASCII and raw hex output of buffer data.

How it Works: WinNT

The Portmon GUI is responsible for identifying serial and parallel ports. It does so by enumerating the serial
ports that are configured under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Hardware\DeviceMap\SerialComm and the parallel
ports defined under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Hardware\DeviceMap\Parallel Ports. These keys contain the
mappings between serial and parallel port device names and the Win32-accessible names.
When you select a port to monitor, Portmon sends a request to its device driver that includes the NT name (e.g.
\device\serial0) that you are interested in. The driver uses standard filtering APIs to attach its own filter device
object to the target device object. First, it uses ZwCreateFile to open the target device. Then it translates the
handle it receives back from ZwCreateFile to a device object pointer. After creating its own filter device object
that matches the characteristics of the target, the driver calls IoAttachDeviceByPointer to establish the filter.
From that point on the Portmon driver will see all requests aimed at the target device.
Portmon has built-in knowledge of all standard serial and parallel port IOCTLs, which are the primary way that
applications and drivers configure and read status information from ports. The IOCTLs are defined in the DDK
file \ddk\src\comm\inc\ntddser.h and \ddk\src\comm\inc\ntddpar.h, and some are documented in the DDK.

How it Works: Windows 95 and 98

On Windows 95 and 98, the Portmon GUI relies on a dynamically loaded VxD to capture serial and parallel
activity. The Windows VCOMM (Virtual Communications) device driver serves as the interface to parallel and
serial devices, so applications that access ports indirectly use its services. The Portmon VxD uses standard VxD
service hooking to intercept all accesses to VCOMM's functions. Like its NT device driver, Portmon's VxD
interprets requests to display them in a friendly format. On Windows 95 and 98 Portmon monitors all ports so
there is no port selection like on NT.

Download Por tmon (226 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 ProcDump v10.0
3/24/2021 • 6 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich and Andrew Richards

Published: 09/17/2020

Download ProcDump (659 KB)

Download ProcDump for Linux (GitHub)

Introduction
ProcDump is a command-line utility whose primary purpose is monitoring an application for CPU spikes and
generating crash dumps during a spike that an administrator or developer can use to determine the cause of the
spike. ProcDump also includes hung window monitoring (using the same definition of a window hang that
Windows and Task Manager use), unhandled exception monitoring and can generate dumps based on the
values of system performance counters. It also can serve as a general process dump utility that you can embed
in other scripts.

Using ProcDump
Capture Usage:

procdump.exe [-mm] [-ma] [-mp] [-mc Mask] [-md Callback_DLL] [-mk]

[-n Count]
[-s Seconds]
[-c|-cl CPU_Usage [-u]]
[-m|-ml Commit_Usage]
[-p|-pl Counter_Threshold]
[-h]
[-e [1 [-g] [-b]]]
[-l]
[-t]
[-f Include_Filter, ...]
[-fx Exclude_Filter, ...]
[-o]
[-r [1..5] [-a]]
[-at Timeout]
[-wer]
[-64]
{
{{[-w] Process_Name | Service_Name | PID} [Dump_File | Dump_Folder]}
|
{-x Dump_Folder Image_File [Argument, ...]}
}

Install Usage:
 procdump.exe -i [Dump_Folder]
[-mm] [-ma] [-mp] [-mc Mask] [-md Callback_DLL] [-mk]
[-r]
[-at Timeout]
[-k]
[-wer]

Uninstall Usage:

procdump.exe -u

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Avoid outage. Requires -r. If the trigger will cause the target
to suspend for a prolonged time due to an exceeded
concurrent dump limit, the trigger will be skipped.

-at Avoid outage at Timeout. Cancel the trigger's collection at N

seconds.

-b Treat debug breakpoints as exceptions (otherwise ignore

them).

-c CPU threshold at which to create a dump of the process.

-cl CPU threshold below which to create a dump of the process.

-d Invoke the minidump callback routine named

MiniDumpCallbackRoutine of the specified DLL.

-e Write a dump when the process encounters an unhandled

exception. Include the 1 to create dump on first chance
exceptions.

-f Filter the first chance exceptions. Wildcards (*) are

supported. To just display the names without dumping, use
a blank ("") filter.

-fx Filter (exclude) on the content of exceptions and debug

logging. Wildcards are supported.

-g Run as a native debugger in a managed process (no interop).

-h Write dump if process has a hung window (does not

respond to window messages for at least 5 seconds).

-i Install ProcDump as the AeDebug postmortem debugger.

Only -ma, -mp, -d and -r are supported as additional
options.

-k Kill the process after cloning (-r), or at the end of dump

collection

-l Display the debug logging of the process.

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-m Memory commit threshold in MB at which to create a dump.

-ma Write a dump file with all process memory. The default dump
format only includes thread and handle information.

-mc Write a custom dump file. Include memory defined by the

specified MINIDUMP_TYPE mask (Hex).

-md Write a Callback dump file. Include memory defined by the

MiniDumpWriteDump callback routine named
MiniDumpCallbackRoutine of the specified DLL.

-mk Also write a Kernel dump file. Includes the kernel stacks of
the threads in the process. OS doesn't support a kernel
dump (-mk) when using a clone (-r). When using multiple
dump sizes, a kernel dump is taken for each dump size.

-ml Trigger when memory commit drops below specified MB

value.

-mm Write a mini dump file (default).

-mp Write a dump file with thread and handle information, and
all read/write process memory. To minimize dump size,
memory areas larger than 512MB are searched for, and if
found, the largest area is excluded. A memory area is the
collection of same sized memory allocation areas. The
removal of this (cache) memory reduces Exchange and SQL
Server dumps by over 90%.

-n Number of dumps to write before exiting.

-o Overwrite an existing dump file.

-p Trigger on the specified performance counter when the

threshold is exceeded. Note: to specify a process counter
when there are multiple instances of the process running,
use the process ID with the following syntax:
"\Process(<name>_<pid>)\counter"

-pl Trigger when performance counter falls below the specified

value.

-r Dump using a clone. Concurrent limit is optional (default 1,

max 5).
CAUTION: a high concurrency value may impact system
performance.
- Windows 7 : Uses Reflection. OS doesn't support -e.
- Windows 8.0 : Uses Reflection. OS doesn't support -e.
- Windows 8.1+: Uses PSS. All trigger types are supported.

-s Consecutive seconds before dump is written (default is 10).

-t Write a dump when the process terminates.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-u Treat CPU usage relative to a single core (used with -c).

As the only option, Uninstalls ProcDump as the postmortem
debugger.

-w Wait for the specified process to launch if it's not running.

-wer Queue the (largest) dump to Windows Error Reporting.

-x Launch the specified image with optional arguments. If it is a

Store Application or Package, ProcDump will start on the
next activation (only).

-64 By default ProcDump will capture a 32-bit dump of a 32-bit

process when running on 64-bit Windows. This option
overrides to create a 64-bit dump. Only use for WOW64
subsystem debugging.

-? Use -? -e to see example command lines.

If you omit the dump file name, it defaults to <processname>_<datetime>.dmp.

Use the -accepteula command line option to automatically accept the Sysinternals license agreement.
Automated Termination: Setting an event with name "ProcDump-<PID>" is the same as typing Ctrl+C to
gracefully terminate ProcDump
Filename: Default dump filename: PROCESSNAME_YYMMDD_HHMMSS.dmp The following substitutions are
supported: PROCESSNAME Process Name Process ID PID EXCEPTIONCODE Exception
Code YYMMDD Year/Month/Day HHMMSS Hour/Minute/Second

Examples
Write a mini dump of a process named 'notepad' (only one match can exist):
C:\>procdump notepad
Write a full dump of a process with PID '4572':
C:\>procdump -ma 4572
Write 3 mini dumps 5 seconds apart of a process named 'notepad':
C:\>procdump -s 5 -n 3 notepad
Write up to 3 mini dumps of a process named 'consume' when it exceeds 20% CPU usage for five seconds:
C:\>procdump -c 20 -s 5 -n 3 consume
Write a mini dump for a process named 'hang.exe' when one of it's Windows is unresponsive for more than 5
seconds:
C:\>procdump -h hang.exe hungwindow.dmp
Write a mini dump of a process named 'outlook' when total system CPU usage exceeds 20% for 10 seconds:
C:\>procdump outlook -p "\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time" 20
Write a full dump of a process named 'outlook' when Outlook's handle count exceeds 10,000:
C:\>procdump -ma outlook -p "\Process(Outlook)\Handle Count" 10000
Write a MiniPlus dump of the Microsoft Exchange Information Store when it has an unhandled exception:
C:\>procdump -mp -e store.exe
Display without writing a dump, the exception codes/names of w3wp.exe:
C:\>procdump -e 1 -f "" w3wp.exe
Write a mini dump of w3wp.exe if an exception's code/name contains 'NotFound':
C:\>procdump -e 1 -f NotFound w3wp.exe
Launch a process and then monitor it for exceptions:
C:\>procdump -e 1 -f "" -x c:\dumps consume.exe
Register for launch, and attempt to activate, a modern 'application'. A new ProcDump instance will start when it
activated to monitor for exceptions:
C:\>procdump -e 1 -f "" -x c:\dumpsMicrosoft.BingMaps_8wekyb3d8bbwe!AppexMaps
Register for launch of a modern 'package'. A new ProcDump instance will start when it is (manually) activated to
monitor for exceptions:
C:\>procdump -e 1 -f "" -x c:\dumps Microsoft.BingMaps_1.2.0.136_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Register as the Just-in-Time (AeDebug) debugger. Makes full dumps in c:\dumps:
C:\>procdump -ma -i c:\dumps
See a list of example command lines (the examples are listed above):
C:\>procdump -? -e

Related Links
Windows Internals Book The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows
internals, by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark
Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for
troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Download ProcDump (659 KB)

Download ProcDump for Linux (GitHub)
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.

Learn More
Defrag Tools: #9 - ProcDump This episode of Defrag Tools covers what the tool captures and expected outage
durations
Defrag Tools: #10 - ProcDump - Triggers This episode covers trigger options in particular 1st & 2nd chance
exceptions
Defrag Tools: #11 - ProcDump - Windows 8 & Process Monitor This episode covers modern application
support and Process Monitor logging support
 Process Explorer v16.42
6/22/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 1, 2021

Download Process Explorer (2.5 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer
shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. 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'll see the handles
that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you'll see the DLLs
and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability
that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.
The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle
leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Related Links
 Windows Internals Book The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows internals,
by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark
Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for
troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Download
Download Process Explorer (2.5 MB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher (Including IA64).
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher (Including IA64).

Installation
Simply run Process Explorer (procexp.exe).
The help file describes Process Explorer operation and usage. If you have problems or questions please visit the
Process Explorer section on Microsoft Q&A.

Note on use of symbols

When you configure the path to DBGHELP.DLL and the symbol path uses the symbol server, the location of
DBGHELP.DLL also has to contain the SYMSRV.DLL supporting the server paths used. See SymSrv
documentation or more information on how to use symbol servers.

Learn More
Here are some other handle and DLL viewing tools and information available at Sysinternals:
The case of the Unexplained... In this video, Mark describes how he has solved seemingly unsolvable system
and application problems on Windows.
Handle - a command-line handle viewer
ListDLLs - a command-line DLL viewer
PsList - local/remote command-line process lister
PsKill - local/remote command-line process killer
Defrag Tools: #2 - Process Explorer In this episode of Defrag Tools, Andrew Richards and Larry Larsen show
how to use Process Explorer to view the details of processes, both at a point in time and historically.
Windows Sysinternals Primer: Process Explorer, Process Monitor and More Process Explorer gets a lot of
attention in the first Sysinternals Primer delivered by Aaron Margosis and Tim Reckmeyer at TechEd 2010.
 Process Monitor v3.83
6/22/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 22, 2021

Download Process Monitor (3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and
process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and
adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event
properties such as session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated
symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more. Its uniquely powerful
features will make Process Monitor a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

Overview of Process Monitor Capabilities

Process Monitor includes powerful monitoring and filtering capabilities, including:
More data captured for operation input and output parameters
Non-destructive filters allow you to set filters without losing data
Capture of thread stacks for each operation make it possible in many cases to identify the root cause of an
operation
Reliable capture of process details, including image path, command line, user and session ID
Configurable and moveable columns for any event property
Filters can be set for any data field, including fields not configured as columns
Advanced logging architecture scales to tens of millions of captured events and gigabytes of log data
Process tree tool shows relationship of all processes referenced in a trace
Native log format preserves all data for loading in a different Process Monitor instance
Process tooltip for easy viewing of process image information
Detail tooltip allows convenient access to formatted data that doesn't fit in the column
Cancellable search
Boot time logging of all operations
The best way to become familiar with Process Monitor's features is to read through the help file and then visit
each of its menu items and options on a live system.

Screenshots
 {width=10%}

Related Links
Windows Internals Book
The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows internals, by Mark Russinovich and
David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference
The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including
descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for troubleshooting, and example real-world
cases of their use.
Download
Download Process Monitor (3 MB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsExec v2.34
5/25/2021 • 4 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: May 25, 2021

Download PsTools (3.5 MB)

Introduction
Utilities like Telnet and remote control programs like Symantec's PC Anywhere let you execute programs on
remote systems, but they can be a pain to set up and require that you install client software on the remote
systems that you wish to access. PsExec is a light-weight telnet-replacement that lets you execute processes on
other systems, complete with full interactivity for console applications, without having to manually install client
software. PsExec's most powerful uses include launching interactive command-prompts on remote systems and
remote-enabling tools like IpConfig that otherwise do not have the ability to show information about remote
systems.
Note: some anti-virus scanners report that one or more of the tools are infected with a "remote admin" virus.
None of the PsTools contain viruses, but they have been used by viruses, which is why they trigger virus
notifications.

Installation
Just copy PsExec onto your executable path. Typing "psexec" displays its usage syntax.

Using PsExec
See the July 2004 issue of Windows IT Pro Magazine for Mark's article that covers advanced usage of PsExec.
Usage:

psexec [\\computer[,computer2[,...] | @file]][-u user [-p psswd][-n s][-r servicename][-h][-l][-s|-e][-x][-i

[session]][-c executable [-f|-v]][-w directory][-d][-<priority>][-a n,n,...] cmd [arguments]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Separate processors on which the application can run with

commas where 1 is the lowest numbered CPU. For example,
to run the application on CPU 2 and CPU 4, enter: "-a 2,4"

-c Copy the specified executable to the remote system for

execution. If you omit this option the application must be in
the system path on the remote system.

-d Don't wait for process to terminate (non-interactive).

-e Does not load the specified account’s profile.

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-f Copy the specified program even if the file already exists on

the remote system.

-i Run the program so that it interacts with the desktop of the

specified session on the remote system. If no session is
specified the process runs in the console session. This flag is
required when attempting to run console applications
interactively (with redirected standard IO).

-h If the target system is Vista or higher, has the process run

with the account's elevated token, if available.

-l Run process as limited user (strips the Administrators group

and allows only privileges assigned to the Users group). On
Windows Vista the process runs with Low Integrity.

-n Specifies timeout in seconds connecting to remote

computers.

-p Specifies optional password for user name. If you omit this

you will be prompted to enter a hidden password.

-r Specifies the name of the remote service to create or interact

with.

-s Run the remote process in the System account.

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-v Copy the specified file only if it has a higher version number

or is newer on than the one on the remote system.

-w Set the working directory of the process (relative to remote

computer).

-x Display the UI on the Winlogon secure desktop (local system

only).

-priority Specifies -low, -belownormal, -abovenormal, -high or -

realtime to run the process at a different priority. Use -
background to run at low memory and I/O priority on Vista.

computer Direct PsExec to run the application on the remote computer

or computers specified. If you omit the computer name,
PsExec runs the application on the local system, and if you
specify a wildcard (\\*), PsExec runs the command on all
computers in the current domain.

@file PsExec will execute the command on each of the computers

listed in the file.

cmd Name of application to execute.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

arguments Arguments to pass (note that file paths must be absolute

paths on the target system).

-accepteula This flag suppresses the display of the license dialog.

You can enclose applications that have spaces in their name with quotation marks e.g.

psexec \\marklap "c:\\long name app.exe"

Input is only passed to the remote system when you press the Enter key. Typing Ctrl-C terminates the remote
process.
If you omit a user name, the process will run in the context of your account on the remote system, but will not
have access to network resources (because it is impersonating). Specify a valid user name in the Domain\User
syntax if the remote process requires access to network resources or to run in a different account. Note that the
password and command are encrypted in transit to the remote system.
Error codes returned by PsExec are specific to the applications you execute, not PsExec.

Examples
This article I wrote describes how PsExec works and gives tips on how to use it:
The following command launches an interactive command prompt on \\marklap :

psexec -i \\marklap cmd

This command executes IpConfig on the remote system with the /all switch, and displays the resulting output
locally:

psexec -i \\marklap ipconfig /all

This command copies the program test.exe to the remote system and executes it interactively:

psexec -i \\marklap -c test.exe

Specify the full path to a program that is already installed on a remote system if its not on the system's path:

psexec -i \\marklap c:\bin\test.exe

Run Regedit interactively in the System account to view the contents of the SAM and SECURITY keys::

psexec -i -d -s c:\windows\regedit.exe

To run Internet Explorer as with limited-user privileges use this command:

psexec -l -d "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe"

 Download PsTools (3.5 MB)
PSTools
PsExec is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsGetSid v1.45
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
PsGetsid allows you to translate SIDs to their display name and vice versa. It works on builtin accounts, domain
accounts, and local accounts.

Installation
Just copy PsGetSid onto your executable path, and type "psgetsid".

Usage
Usage: psgetsid [\\computer[,computer[,...] | @file\] [-u username [-p password]]] [account|SID]

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-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p Specifies optional password for user name. If you omit this

you will be prompted to enter a hidden password.

Account PsGetSid will report the SID for the specified user account
rather than the computer.

SID PsGetSid will report the account for the specified SID.

Computer Direct PsGetSid to perform the command on the remote

computer or computers specified. If you omit the computer
name PsGetSid runs the command on the local system, and
if you specify a wildcard (\\*), PsGetSid runs the command
on all computers in the current domain.

@file PsGetSid will execute the command on each of the

computers listed in the file.

If you want to see a computer's SID just pass the computer's name as a command-line argument. If you want to
see a user's SID, name the account (e.g. "administrator") on the command-line and an optional computer name.
Specify a user name if the account you are running from doesn't have administrative privileges on the computer
you want to query. If you don't specify a password as an option, PsGetSid will prompt you for one so that you
can type it in without having it echoed to the display.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsGetSid is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsKill v1.16
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
Windows NT/2000 does not come with a command-line 'kill' utility. You can get one in the Windows NT or
Win2K Resource Kit, but the kit's utility can only terminate processes on the local computer. PsKill is a kill utility
that not only does what the Resource Kit's version does, but can also kill processes on remote systems. You don't
even have to install a client on the target computer to use PsKill to terminate a remote process.

Installation
Just copy PsKill onto your executable path, and type pskill with command-line options defined below.

Using PsKill
See the September 2004 issue of Windows IT Pro Magazine for Mark's article that covers advanced usage of
PsKill.
Running PsKill with a process ID directs it to kill the process of that ID on the local computer. If you specify a
process name PsKill will kill all processes that have that name.
Usage: pskill [- ] [-t] [\\computer [-u username] [-p password]] <process name | process id>

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- Displays the supported options.

-t Kill the process and its descendants.

\\computer Specifies the computer on which the process you want to

terminate is executing. The remote computer must be
accessible via the NT network neighborhood.

-u username If you want to kill a process on a remote system and the

account you are executing in does not have administrative
privileges on the remote system then you must login as an
administrator using this command-line option. If you do not
include the password with the -p option then PsKill will
prompt you for the password without echoing your input to
the display.

-p password This option lets you specify the login password on the
command line so that you can use PsList from batch files. If
you specify an account name and omit the -p option PsList
prompts you interactively for a password.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

process id Specifies the process ID of the process you want to kill.

process name Specifies the process name of the process or processes you
want to kill.

PsKill Microsoft KB Article

This Microsoft KB article references PsKill:
810596: PSVR2002: "There Is No Information to Display in This View" Error Message When You Try to Access a
Project View

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsKill is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsList v1.4
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
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pslist exp Show statistics for all the processes that start with "exp",
which would include Explorer.

-d Show thread detail.

-m Show memory detail.

-x Show processes, memory information and threads.

-t Show process tree.

-s [n] Run in task-manager mode, for optional seconds specified.

Press Escape to abort.

-r n Task-manager mode refresh rate in seconds (default is 1).

\\computer Instead of showing process information for the local system,

PsList will show information for the NT/Win2K system
specified. Include the -u switch with a username and
password to login to the remote system if your security
credentials do not permit you to obtain performance
counter information from the remote system.

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p This option lets you specify the login password on the

command line so that you can use PsList from batch files. If
you specify an account name and omit the -p option PsList
prompts you interactively for a password.

name Show information about processes that begin with the name
specified.

-e Exact match the process name.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

pid Instead of listing all the running processes in the system, this
parameter narrows PsList's scan to the process that has the
specified PID. Thus:
pslist 53
would dump statistics for the process with the PID 53.

How it Works
Like Windows NT/2K's built-in PerfMon monitoring tool, PsList uses the Windows NT/2K performance counters
to obtain the information it displays. You can find documentation for Windows NT/2K performance counters,
including the source code to Windows NT's built-in performance monitor, PerfMon, in MSDN.

Memory Abbreviation Key

All memory values are displayed in KB.
Pri : Priority
Thd : Number of Threads
Hnd : Number of Handles
VM : Virtual Memory
WS : Working Set
Priv : Private Virtual Memory
Priv Pk : Private Virtual Memory Peak
Faults : Page Faults
NonP : Non-Paged Pool
Page : Paged Pool
Cswtch : Context Switches

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsList is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsService v2.25
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
PsService is a service viewer and controller for Windows. Like the SC utility that's included in the Windows NT
and Windows 2000 Resource Kits, PsService displays the status, configuration, and dependencies of a service,
and allows you to start, stop, pause, resume and restart them. Unlike the SC utility, PsService enables you to
logon to a remote system using a different account, for cases when the account from which you run it doesn't
have required permissions on the remote system. PsService includes a unique service-search capability, which
identifies active instances of a service on your network. You would use the search feature if you wanted to locate
systems running DHCP servers, for instance.
Finally, PsService works on both NT 4, Windows 2000 and Windows Vista, whereas the Windows 2000 Resource
Kit version of SC requires Windows 2000, and PsService doesn't require you to manually enter a "resume index"
in order to obtain a complete listing of service information.>

Installation
Just copy PsService onto your executable path, and type "psservice".

Using PsService
The default behavior of PsService is to display the configured services (both running and stopped) on the local
system. Entering a command on the command-line invokes a particular feature, and some commands accept
options. Typing a command followed by "- " displays information on the syntax for the command.
Usage: psser vice [\\computer [-u username] [-p password]] <command> <options>

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quer y Displays the status of a service.

config Displays the configuration of a service.

setconfig Sets the start type (disabled, auto, demand) of a service.

star t Starts a service.

stop Stops a service.

restar t Stops and then restarts a service.

pause Pauses a service

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

cont Resumes a paused service.

depend Lists the services dependent on the one specified.

security Dumps the service's security descriptor.

find Searches the network for the specified service.

\\computer Targets the NT/Win2K system specified. Include the -u switch

with a username and password to login to the remote
system if your security credentials do not permit you to
obtain performance counter information from the remote
system. If you specify the -u option, but not a password with
the -p option, PsService will prompt you to enter the
password and will not echo it to the screen.

How it Works
PsService uses the Service Control Manager APIs that are documented in the Platform SDK.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsService is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsSuspend v1.07
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
PsSuspend lets you suspend processes on the local or a remote system, which is desirable in cases where a
process is consuming a resource (e.g. network, CPU or disk) that you want to allow different processes to use.
Rather than kill the process that's consuming the resource, suspending permits you to let it continue operation
at some later point in time.

Installation
Copy PsSuspend onto your executable path and type "pssuspend" with command-line options defined below.

Using PsSuspend
Running PsSuspend with a process ID directs it to suspend or resume the process of that ID on the local
computer. If you specify a process name PsSuspend will suspend or resume all processes that have that name.
Specify the -r switch to resume suspended processes.
Usage: pssuspend [- ] [-r] [\\computer [-u username] [-p password]] <process name | process id>

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- Displays the supported options.

-r Resumes the specified processes specified if they are

suspended.

\\computer Specifies the computer on which the process you want to

suspend or resume is executing. The remote computer must
be accessible via the NT network neighborhood.

-u username If you want to suspend a process on a remote system and

the account you are executing in does not have
administrative privileges on the remote system then you
must login as an administrator using this command-line
option. If you do not include the password with the -p
option then PsSuspend will prompt you for the password
without echoing your input to the display.

-p password This option lets you specify the login password on the
command line so that you can use PsSuspend from batch
files. If you specify an account name and omit the -p option
PsSuspend prompts you interactively for a password.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

process id Specifies the process ID of the process you want to suspend

or resume.

process name Specifies the process name of the process or processes you
want to suspend or resume.

PsSuspend is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsSuspend is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsTools
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: March 23, 2021

Download PsTools Suite (3.5 MB)

Introduction
The Windows NT and Windows 2000 Resource Kits come with a number of command-line tools that help you
administer your Windows NT/2K systems. Over time, I've grown a collection of similar tools, including some not
included in the Resource Kits. What sets these tools apart is that they all allow you to manage remote systems as
well as the local one. The first tool in the suite was PsList, a tool that lets you view detailed information about
processes, and the suite is continually growing. The "Ps" prefix in PsList relates to the fact that the standard UNIX
process listing command-line tool is named "ps", so I've adopted this prefix for all the tools in order to tie them
together into a suite of tools named PsTools.

NOTE
Some anti-virus scanners report that one or more of the tools are infected with a "remote admin" virus. None of the
PsTools contain viruses, but they have been used by viruses, which is why they trigger virus notifications.

The tools included in the PsTools suite, which are downloadable as a package, are:
PsExec - execute processes remotely
PsFile - shows files opened remotely
PsGetSid - display the SID of a computer or a user
PsInfo - list information about a system
PsPing - measure network performance
PsKill - kill processes by name or process ID
PsList - list detailed information about processes
PsLoggedOn - see who's logged on locally and via resource sharing (full source is included)
PsLogList - dump event log records
PsPasswd - changes account passwords
PsService - view and control services
PsShutdown - shuts down and optionally reboots a computer
PsSuspend - suspends processes
PsUptime - shows you how long a system has been running since its last reboot (PsUptime's functionality
has been incorporated into PsInfo
The PsTools download package includes an HTML help file with complete usage information for all the tools.

Download PsTools Suite (3.5 MB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
 Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
Installation
None of the tools requires any special installation. You don't even need to install any client software on the
remote computers at which you target them. Run them by typing their name and any command-line options
you want. To show complete usage information, specify the "-? " command-line option. If you have questions or
problems, please visit the Sysinternals PsTools Forum.
Related Links
Introduction to the PsTools: Wes Miller gives a high-level overview of the Sysinternals PsTools in the March
column of his TechNet Magazine column.
 ShellRunas v1.01
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich and Jon Schwar tz

Published: February 28, 2008

Download ShellRunas (50 KB)

Introduction
The command-line Runas utility is handy for launching programs under different accounts, but it’s not
convenient if you’re a heavy Explorer user. ShellRunas provides functionality similar to that of Runas to launch
programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.
Screenshot

Using ShellRunas
Usage:
shellrunas /reg [/quiet]
shellrunas /regnetonly [/quiet]
shellrunas /unreg [/quiet]
shellrunas [/netonly] < program > [ arguments ]

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/reg Registers ShellRunas shell context-menu entry

/regnetonly Registers Shell /netonly context-menu entry

Note: a command prompt will flash when the program
starts

/unreg Unregisters ShellRunas shell context-menu entry

/quiet Register or unregisters ShellRunas shell context-menu entry

without result dialog
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

/netonly Use if specified credentials are for remote access only

<program> Runs program with specified credentials and parameters

Download ShellRunas (50 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.

Getting Help
If you have problems or questions, please visit the Sysinternals Forum.
 VMMap v3.31
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 04, 2020

Download VMMap (1.3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
VMMap is a process virtual and physical memory analysis utility. It shows a breakdown of a process's
committed virtual memory types as well as the amount of physical memory (working set) assigned by the
operating system to those types. Besides graphical representations of memory usage, VMMap also shows
summary information and a detailed process memory map. Powerful filtering and refresh capabilities allow you
to identify the sources of process memory usage and the memory cost of application features.
Besides flexible views for analyzing live processes, VMMap supports the export of data in multiple forms,
including a native format that preserves all the information so that you can load back in. It also includes
command-line options that enable scripting scenarios.
VMMap is the ideal tool for developers wanting to understand and optimize their application's memory
resource usage.

Screenshot
Related Links
Windows Internals Book
The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows internals, by Mark Russinovich and
David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark
Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for
troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Download VMMap (1.3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.

Getting Help
If you have problems or questions, please visit the Sysinternals Forum.

Learn More
Defrag Tools: #7 - VMMap
In this episode of Defrag Tools, Andrew Richards and Larry Larsen cover how to use VMMap to see how
Virtual Memory is being used and if there have been any memory leaks.
 Sysinternals Security Utilities
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

AccessChk
This tool shows you the accesses the user or group you specify has to files, Registry keys or Windows services.
AccessEnum
This simple yet powerful security tool shows you who has what access to directories, files and Registry keys on
your systems. Use it to find holes in your permissions.
Autologon
Bypass password screen during logon.
Autoruns
See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you log in. Autoruns
also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.
LogonSessions
List active logon sessions
Process Explorer
Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and
more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.
PsExec
Execute processes with limited-user rights.
PsLoggedOn
Show users logged on to a system.
PsLogList
Dump event log records.
PsTools
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
Rootkit Revealer
RootkitRevealer is an advanced rootkit detection utility.
SDelete
Securely overwrite your sensitive files and cleanse your free space of previously deleted files using this DoD-
compliant secure delete program.
ShareEnum
Scan file shares on your network and view their security settings to close security holes.
ShellRunas
Launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.
Sigcheck
Dump file version information and verify that images on your system are digitally signed.
Sysmon
Monitors and reports key system activity via the Windows event log.
 Autologon v3.10
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: August 29, 2016

Download Autologon (495 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Autologon enables you to easily configure Windows’ built-in autologon mechanism. Instead of waiting for a
user to enter their name and password, Windows uses the credentials you enter with Autologon, which are
encrypted in the Registry, to log on the specified user automatically.
Autologon is easy enough to use. Just run autologon.exe, fill in the dialog, and hit Enable. To turn off auto-logon,
hit Disable. Also, if the shift key is held down before the system performs an autologon, the autologon will be
disabled for that logon. You can also pass the username, domain and password as command-line arguments:
autologon user domain password
Note: When Exchange Activesync password restrictions are in place, Windows will not process the autologon
configuration.

Download Autologon (495 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 LogonSessions v1.41
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 25, 2020

Download LogonSessions (667 KB)

Introduction
If you think that when you logon to a system there's only one active logon session, this utility will surprise you. It
lists the currently active logon sessions and, if you specify the -p option, the processes running in each session.
Usage: logonsessions [-c[t]] [-p]

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-c Print output as CSV.

-ct Print output as tab-delimited values.

-p List processes running in logon session.

Example output
C:\>logonsessions -p

[13] Logon session 00000000:6a6d6160:

User name: NTDEV\markruss
Auth package: Kerberos
Logon type: RemoteInteractive
Session: 1
Sid: S-1-5-21-397955417-626881126-188441444-3615555
Logon time: 7/2/2015 6:05:31 PM
Logon server: NTDEV-99
DNS Domain: NTDEV.CORP.MICROSOFT.COM
UPN: [email protected]
15368: ProcExp.exe
17528: ProcExp64.exe
13116: cmd.exe
17100: conhost.exe
6716: logonsessions.exe

Download LogonSessions (667 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista (32-bit)and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 NewSID v4.10
6/22/2021 • 11 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006
Note: NewSID has been retired and is no longer available for download. Please see Mark Russinovich’s blog
post: NewSID Retirement and the Machine SID Duplication Myth

IMPORTANT
Regarding SIDs, Microsoft does not support images that are prepared using NewSID, we only support images
that are prepared using SysPrep. Microsoft has not tested NewSID for all deployment cloning options.
For more information on Microsoft's official policy, please see the following Knowledge Base article:
The Microsoft policy concerning disk duplication of Windows XP installations

Introduction
Many organizations use disk image cloning to perform mass rollouts of Windows. This technique involves
copying the disks of a fully installed and configured Windows computer onto the disk drives of other computers.
These other computers effectively appear to have been through the same install process, and are immediately
available for use.
While this method saves hours of work and hassle over other rollout approaches, it has the major problem that
every cloned system has an identical Computer Security Identifier (SID). This fact compromises security in
Workgroup environments, and removable media security can also be compromised in networks with multiple
identical computer SIDs.
Demand from the Windows community has lead several companies to develop programs that can change a
computer's SID after a system has been cloned. However, Symantec's SID Changer andSymantec's Ghost Walker
are only sold as part of each company's high-end product. Further, they both run from a DOS command prompt
(Altiris' changer is similar to NewSID).
NewSID is a program we developed that changes a computer's SID. It is free and is a Win32 program, meaning
that it can easily be run on systems that have been previously cloned.
Please read this entire article before you use this program.
Version Information:
Version 4.0 introduces support for Windows XP and .NET Server, a wizard-style interface, allows you to
specify the SID that you want applied, Registry compaction and also the option to rename a computer (which
results in a change of both NetBIOS and DNS names).
Version 3.02 corrects a bug where NewSid would not correctly copy default values with invalid value types
when renaming a key with an old SID to a new SID. NT actually makes use of such invalid values at certain
times in the SAM. The symptom of this bug was error messages reporting access denied when account
information was updated by an authorized user.
Version 3.01 adds a work-around for an inaccessible Registry key that is created by Microsoft Transaction
Server. Without the work-around NewSID would quit prematurely.
Version 3.0 introduces a SID-sync feature that directs NewSID to obtain a SID to apply from another
 computer.
Version 2.0 has an automated-mode option, and let's you change the computer name as well.
Version 1.2 fixes a bug in that was introduced in 1.1 where some file system security descriptors were not
updated.
Version 1.1 corrects a relatively minor bug that affected only certain installations. It also has been updated to
change SIDs associated with the permission settings of file and printer shares.

Cloning and Alternate Rollout Methods

One of the most popular ways of performing mass Windows rollouts (typically hundreds of computers) in
corporate environments is based on the technique of disk cloning. A system administrator installs the base
operating system and add-on software used in the company on a template computer. After configuring the
machine for operation in the company network, automated disk or system duplication tools (such as
Symantec'sGhost, PowerQuest'sImage Drive, and Altiris'RapiDeploy) are used to copy the template computer's
drives onto tens or hundreds of computers. These clones are then given final tweaks, such as the assignment of
unique names, and then used by company employees.
Another popular way of rolling out is by using the Microsoft sysdiff utility (part of the Windows Resource Kit).
This tool requires that the system administrator perform a full install (usually a scripted unattended installation)
on each computer, and then sysdiff automates the application of add-on software install images.
Because the installation is skipped, and because disk sector copying is more efficient than file copying, a cloned-
based rollout can save dozens of hours over a comparable sysdiff install. In addition, the system administrator
does not have to learn how to use unattended install or sysdiff, or create and debug install scripts. This alone
saves hours of work.

The SID Duplication Problem

The problem with cloning is that it is only supported by Microsoft in a very limited sense. Microsoft has stated
that cloning systems is only supported if it is done before the GUI portion of Windows Setup has been reached.
When the install reaches this point the computer is assigned a name and a unique computer SID. If a system is
cloned after this step the cloned machines will all have identical computer SIDs. Note that just changing the
computer name or adding the computer to a different domain does not change the computer SID. Changing the
name or domain only changes the domain SID if the computer was previously associated with a domain.
To understand the problem that cloning can cause, it is first necessary to understand how individual local
accounts on a computer are assigned SIDs. The SIDs of local accounts consist of the computer's SID and an
appended RID (Relative Identifier). The RID starts at a fixed value, and is increased by one for each account
created. This means that the second account on one computer, for example, will be given the same RID as the
second account on a clone. The result is that both accounts have the same SID.
Duplicate SIDs aren't an issue in a Domain-based environment since domain accounts have SID's based on the
Domain SID. But, according to Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q162001, "Do Not Disk Duplicate Installed
Versions of Windows NT", in a Workgroup environment security is based on local account SIDs. Thus, if two
computers have users with the same SID, the Workgroup will not be able to distinguish between the users. All
resources, including files and Registry keys, that one user has access to, the other will as well.
Another instance where duplicate SIDs can cause problems is where there is removable media formatted with
NTFS, and local account security attributes are applied to files and directories. If such a media is moved to a
different computer that has the same SID, then local accounts that otherwise would not be able to access the
files might be able to if their account IDs happened to match those in the security attributes. This is not be
possible if computers have different SIDs.
An article Mark has written, entitled "NT Rollout Options," was published in the June issue of Windows NT
Magazine. It discusses the duplicate SID issue in more detail, and presents Microsoft's official stance on cloning.
To see if you have a duplicate SID issue on your network, use PsGetSid to display machine SIDs.

NewSID
NewSID is a program we developed to change a computer's SID. It first generates a random SID for the
computer, and proceeds to update instances of the existing computer SID it finds in the Registry and in file
security descriptors, replacing occurrences with the new SID. NewSID requires administrative privileges to run. It
has two functions: changing the SID, and changing the computer name.
To use NewSID's auto-run option, specify "/a" on the command line. You can also direct it to automatically
change the computer's name by including the new name after the "/a" switch. For example:
newsid /a [newname]
Would have NewSID run without prompting, change the computer name to "newname" and have it reboot the
computer if everything goes okay.
Note: If the system on which you wish to run NewSID is running IISAdmin you must stop the IISAdmin service
before running NewSID. Use this command to stop the IISAdmin service: net stop iisadmin /y
NewSID's SID-synchronizing feature that allows you to specify that, instead of randomly generating one, the
new SID should be obtained from a different computer. This functionality makes it possible to move a Backup
Domain Controller (BDC) to a new Domain, since a BDC's relationship to a Domain is identified by it having the
same computer SID as the other Domain Controllers (DCs). Simply choose the "Synchronize SID" button and
enter the target computer's name. You must have permissions to change the security settings of the target
computer's Registry keys, which typically means that you must be logged in as a domain administrator to use
this feature.
Note that when you run NewSID that the size of the Registry will grow, so make sure that the maximum Registry
size will accommodate growth. We have found that this growth has no perceptible impact on system
performance. The reason the Registry grows is that it becomes fragmented as temporary security settings are
applied by NewSID. When the settings are removed the Registry is not compacted.
Impor tant: Note that while we have thoroughly tested NewSID, you must use it at your own risk. As with any
software that changes file and Registry settings, it is highly recommended that you completely back-up your
computer before running NewSID.

Moving a BDC
Here are the steps you should follow when you want to move a BDC from one domain to another:
1. Boot up the BDC you want to move and log in. Use NewSID to synchronize the SID of the BDC with the PDC
of the domain to which you wish to move the BDC.
2. Reboot the system for which you changed the SID (the BDC). Since the domain the BDC is now associated
with already has an active PDC, it will boot as a BDC in its new domain.
3. The BDC will show up as a workstation in Server Manager, so use the "Add to Domain" button to add the BDC
to its new domain. Be sure to specify the BDC radio button when adding.

How it Works
NewSID starts by reading the existing computer SID. A computer's SID is stored in the Registry's SECURITY hive
under SECURITY\SAM\Domains\Account . This key has a value named F and a value named V. The V value is
a binary value that has the computer SID embedded within it at the end of its data. NewSID ensures that this SID
is in a standard format (3 32-bit subauthorities preceded by three 32-bit authority fields).
Next, NewSID generates a new random SID for the computer. NewSID's generation takes great pains to create a
truly random 96-bit value, which replaces the 96-bits of the 3 subauthority values that make up a computer SID.
Three phases to the computer SID replacement follow. In the first phase, the SECURITY and SAM Registry hives
are scanned for occurrences of the old computer SID in key values, as well as the names of the keys. When the
SID is found in a value it is replaced with the new computer SID, and when the SID is found in a name, the key
and its subkeys are copied to a new subkey that has the same name except with the new SID replacing the old.
The final two phases involve updating security descriptors. Registry keys and NTFS files have security associated
with them. Security descriptors consist of an entry that identifies which account owns the resource, which group
is the primary group owner, an optional list of entries that specify actions permitted by users or groups (known
as the Discretionary Access Control List - DACL), and an optional list of entries that specify which actions
performed by certain users or groups will generate entries in the system Event Log (System Access Control List
- SACL). A user or a group is identified in these security descriptors with their SIDs, and as I stated earlier, local
user accounts (other than the built-in accounts such as Administrator, Guest, and so on) have their SIDs made up
of the computer SID plus a RID.
The first part of security descriptor updates occurs on all NTFS file system files on the computer. Every security
descriptor is scanned for occurrences of the computer SID. When NewSID finds one, it replaces it with the new
computer SID.
The second part of security descriptor updates is performed on the Registry. First, NewSID must make sure that
it scans all hives, not just those that are loaded. Every user account has a Registry hive that is loaded as
HKEY_CURRENT_USER when the user is logged in, but remains on disk in the user's profile directory when
they are not. NewSID identifies the locations of all user hive locations by enumerating the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList key, which
points at the directories in which they are stored. It then loads them into the Registry using RegLoadKey under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and scans the entire Registry, examining each security descriptor in search of the old
computer SID. Updates are performed the same as for files, and when its done NewSID unloads the user hives it
loaded. As a final step NewSID scans the HKEY_USERS key, which contains the hive of the currently logged-in
user as well as the .Default hive. This is necessary because a hive can't be loaded twice, so the logged-in user
hive won't be loaded into HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE when NewSID is loading other user hives.
Finally, NewSID must update the ProfileList subkeys to refer to the new account SIDs. This step is necessary to
have Windows NT correctly associate profiles with the user accounts after the account SIDs are changed to
reflect the new computer SID.
NewSID ensures that it can access and modify every file and Registry key in the system by giving itself the
following privileges: System, Backup, Restore and Take Ownership.
 PsLoggedOn v1.35
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
You can determine who is using resources on your local computer with the "net" command ("net session"),
however, there is no built-in way to determine who is using the resources of a remote computer. In addition, NT
comes with no tools to see who is logged onto a computer, either locally or remotely. PsLoggedOn is an applet
that displays both the locally logged on users and users logged on via resources for either the local computer, or
a remote one. If you specify a user name instead of a computer, PsLoggedOn searches the computers in the
network neighborhood and tells you if the user is currently logged on.
PsLoggedOn's definition of a locally logged on user is one that has their profile loaded into the Registry, so
PsLoggedOn determines who is logged on by scanning the keys under the HKEY_USERS key. For each key that
has a name that is a user SID (security Identifier), PsLoggedOn looks up the corresponding user name and
displays it. To determine who is logged onto a computer via resource shares, PsLoggedOn uses the
NetSessionEnum API. Note that PsLoggedOn will show you as logged on via resource share to remote
computers that you query because a logon is required for PsLoggedOn to access the Registry of a remote
system.

Installation
Just copy PsLoggedOn onto your executable path, and type "psloggedon".

Using PsLoggedOn
Usage: psloggedon [- ] [-l] [-x] [\\computername | username]

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- Displays the supported options and the units of

measurement used for output values.

-l Shows only local logons instead of both local and network

resource logons.

-x Don't show logon times.

\\computername Specifies the name of the computer for which to list logon
information.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

username If you specify a user name PsLoggedOn searches the

network for computers to which that user is logged on. This
is useful if you want to ensure that a particular user is not
logged on when you are about to change their user profile
configuration.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsLoggedOn is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local
and remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsLogList v2.81
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: March 05, 2019

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
The Resource Kit comes with a utility, elogdump, that lets you dump the contents of an Event Log on the local or
a remote computer. PsLogList is a clone of elogdump except that PsLogList lets you login to remote systems in
situations your current set of security credentials would not permit access to the Event Log, and PsLogList
retrieves message strings from the computer on which the event log you view resides.

Installation
Just copy PsLogList onto your executable path, and type "psloglist".

Using PsLogList
The default behavior of PsLogList is to show the contents of the System Event Log on the local computer, with
visually-friendly formatting of Event Log records. Command line options let you view logs on different
computers, use a different account to view a log, or to have the output formatted in a string-search friendly way.
usage: psloglist [- ] [\\computer[,computer[,...] | @file [-u username [-p password]]] [-s [-t
delimiter]] [-m #|-n #|-h #|-d #|-w][-c][-x][-r][-a mm/dd/yy][-b mm/dd/yy][-f filter] [-i ID[,ID[,...] | -
e ID[,ID[,...]]] [-o event source[,event source][,..]]] [-q event source[,event source][,..]]] [-l event log
file] <eventlog>

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@file Execute the command on each of the computers listed in the

file.

-a Dump records timestamped after specified date.

-b Dump records timestamped before specified date.

-c Clear the event log after displaying.

-d Only display records from previous n days.

-c Clear the event log after displaying.

-e Exclude events with the specified ID or IDs (up to 10).

-f Filter event types with filter string (e.g. "-f w" to filter
warnings).
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-h Only display records from previous n hours.

-i Show only events with the specified ID or IDs (up to 10).

-l Dump records from the specified event log file.

-m Only display records from previous n minutes.

-n Only display the number of most recent entries specified.

-o Show only records from the specified event source (e.g. \"-o
cdrom\").

-p Specifies optional password for user name. If you omit this

you will be prompted to enter a hidden password.

-q Omit records from the specified event source or sources (e.g.

\"-q cdrom\").

-r SDump log from least recent to most recent.

-s This switch has PsLogList print Event Log records one-per-

line, with comma delimited fields. This format is convenient
for text searches, e.g. psloglist

-t The default delimeter is a comma, but can be overriden with

the specified character.

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-w Wait for new events, dumping them as they generate (local

system only).

-x Dump extended data

eventlog eventlog

How it Works
Like Win NT/2K's built-in Event Viewer and the Resource Kit's elogdump, PsLogList uses the Event Log API,
which is documented in Windows Platform SDK. PsLogList loads message source modules on the system where
the event log being viewed resides so that it correctly displays event log messages.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsLogList is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 RootkitRevealer v1.71
3/24/2021 • 10 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download RootkitRevealer (231 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
RootkitRevealer is an advanced rootkit detection utility. It runs on Windows XP (32-bit) and Windows Server
2003 (32-bit), and its output lists Registry and file system API discrepancies that may indicate the presence of a
user-mode or kernel-mode rootkit. RootkitRevealer successfully detects many persistent rootkits including AFX,
Vanquish and HackerDefender (note: RootkitRevealer is not intended to detect rootkits like Fu that don't attempt
to hide their files or registry keys). If you use it to identify the presence of a rootkit please let us know!
The reason that there is no longer a command-line version is that malware authors have started targetting
RootkitRevealer's scan by using its executable name. We've therefore updated RootkitRevealer to execute its scan
from a randomly named copy of itself that runs as a Windows service. This type of execution is not conducive to
a command-line interface. Note that you can use command-line options to execute an automatic scan with
results logged to a file, which is the equivalent of the command-line version's behavior.

What is a Rootkit?
The term rootkit is used to describe the mechanisms and techniques whereby malware, including viruses,
spyware, and trojans, attempt to hide their presence from spyware blockers, antivirus, and system management
utilities. There are several rootkit classifications depending on whether the malware survives reboot and
whether it executes in user mode or kernel mode.
Persistent Rootkits
A persistent rootkit is one associated with malware that activates each time the system boots. Because such
malware contain code that must be executed automatically each system start or when a user logs in, they must
store code in a persistent store, such as the Registry or file system, and configure a method by which the code
executes without user intervention.
Memor y-Based Rootkits
Memory-based rootkits are malware that has no persistent code and therefore does not survive a reboot.
User-mode Rootkits
There are many methods by which rootkits attempt to evade detection. For example, a user-mode rootkit might
intercept all calls to the Windows FindFirstFile/FindNextFile APIs, which are used by file system exploration
utilities, including Explorer and the command prompt, to enumerate the contents of file system directories.
When an application performs a directory listing that would otherwise return results that contain entries
identifying the files associated with the rootkit, the rootkit intercepts and modifies the output to remove the
entries.
The Windows native API serves as the interface between user-mode clients and kernel-mode services and more
sophisticated user-mode rootkits intercept file system, Registry, and process enumeration functions of the
Native API. This prevents their detection by scanners that compare the results of a Windows API enumeration
with that returned by a native API enumeration.
Kernel-mode Rootkits
Kernel-mode rootkits can be even more powerful since, not only can they intercept the native API in kernel-
mode, but they can also directly manipulate kernel-mode data structures. A common technique for hiding the
presence of a malware process is to remove the process from the kernel's list of active processes. Since process
management APIs rely on the contents of the list, the malware process will not display in process management
tools like Task Manager or Process Explorer.

How RootkitRevealer Works

Since persistent rootkits work by changing API results so that a system view using APIs differs from the actual
view in storage, RootkitRevealer compares the results of a system scan at the highest level with that at the
lowest level. The highest level is the Windows API and the lowest level is the raw contents of a file system
volume or Registry hive (a hive file is the Registry's on-disk storage format). Thus, rootkits, whether user mode
or kernel mode, that manipulate the Windows API or native API to remove their presence from a directory
listing, for example, will be seen by RootkitRevealer as a discrepancy between the information returned by the
Windows API and that seen in the raw scan of a FAT or NTFS volume's file system structures.
Can a Rootkit hide from RootkitRevealer
It is theoretically possible for a rootkit to hide from RootkitRevealer. Doing so would require intercepting
RootkitRevealer's reads of Registry hive data or file system data and changing the contents of the data such that
the rootkit's Registry data or files are not present. However, this would require a level of sophistication not seen
in rootkits to date. Changes to the data would require both an intimate knowledge of the NTFS, FAT and Registry
hive formats, plus the ability to change data structures such that they hide the rootkit, but do not cause
inconsistent or invalid structures or side-effect discrepancies that would be flagged by RootkitRevealer.
Is there a sure-fire way to know of a rootkit's presence
In general, not from within a running system. A kernel-mode rootkit can control any aspect of a system's
behavior so information returned by any API, including the raw reads of Registry hive and file system data
performed by RootkitRevealer, can be compromised. While comparing an on-line scan of a system and an off-
line scan from a secure environment such as a boot into an CD-based operating system installation is more
reliable, rootkits can target such tools to evade detection by even them.
The bottom line is that there will never be a universal rootkit scanner, but the most powerful scanners will be on-
line/off-line comparison scanners that integrate with antivirus.

Using RootkitRevealer
RootkitRevealer requires that the account from which its run has assigned to it the Backup files and directories,
Load drivers and Perform volume maintenance tasks (on Windows XP and higher) privileges. The
Administrators group is assigned these privileges by default. In order to minimize false positives run
RootkitRevealer on an idle system.
For best results exit all applications and keep the system otherwise idle during the RootkitRevealer scanning
process.
If you have questions or problems please visit the Sysinternals RootkitRevealer Forum.

Manual Scanning
To scan a system launch it on the system and press the Scan button. RootkitRevealer scans the system reporting
its actions in a status area at the bottom of its window and noting discrepancies in the output list. The options
you can configure:
Hide NTFS Metadata Files: this option is on by default and has RootkitRevealer not show standard NTFS
 metadata files, which are hidden from the Windows API.
Scan Registr y: this option is on by default. Deselecting it has RootkitRevealer not perform a Registry scan.

Launching an Automatic Scan

RootkitRevealer supports several options for auto-scanning systems:
Usage: rootkitrevealer [-a [-c] [-m] [-r] outputfile]

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-a Automatically scan and exit when done.

-c Format output as CSV.

-m Show NTFS metadata files.

-r Don't scan the Registry.

Note that the file output location must be on a local volume.

If you specify the -c option it does not report progress and discrepancies are printed in CSV format for easy
import into a database. You can perform scans of remote systems by executing it with the Sysinternals PsExec
utility using a command-line like the following:
psexec \\remote -c rootkitrevealer.exe -a c:\windows\system32\rootkit.log

Interpreting the Output

This is a screenshot of RootkitRevealer detecting the presence of the popular HackerDefender rootkit. The
Registry key discrepancies show that the Registry keys storing HackerDefender's device driver and service
settings are not visible to the Windows API, but are present in the raw scan of the Registry hive data. Similarly,
the HackerDefender-associated files are not visible to Windows API directory scans, but are present in the scan
of the raw file system data.

You should examine all discrepancies and determine the likelihood that they indicate the presence of a rootkit.
Unfortunately, there is no definitive way to determine, based on the output, if a rootkit is present, but you should
examine all reported discrepancies to ensure that they are explainable. If you determine that you have a rootkit
installed, search the web for removal instructions. If you are unsure as to how to remove a rootkit you should
reformat the system's hard disk and reinstall Windows.
In addition to the information below on possible RootkitRevealer discrepancies, the RootkitRevealer Forum at
Sysinternals discusses detected rootkits and specific false-positives.
Hidden from Windows API
These discrepancies are the ones exhibited by most rootkits; however, if you haven't checked the Hide NTFS
metadata files you should expect to see a number of such entries on any NTFS volume, since NTFS hides its
metada files, such as $MFT and $Secure, from the Windows API. The metadata files present on NTFS volumes
vary by version of NTFS and the NTFS features that have been enabled on the volume. There are also antivirus
products, such as Kaspersky Antivirus, that use rootkit techniques to hide data they store in NTFS alternate data
streams. If you are running such a virus scanner you'll see a Hidden from Windows API discrepancy for an
alternate data stream on every NTFS file. RootkitRevealer does not support output filters because rootkits can
take advantage of any filtering. Finally, if a file is deleted during a scan you may also see this discrepancy.
This is a list of NTFS metadata files defined as of Windows Server 2003:
$AttrDef
$BadClus
$BadClus:$Bad
$BitMap
$Boot
$LogFile
$Mft
$MftMirr
$Secure
$UpCase
$Volume
$Extend
$Extend\$Reparse
$Extend\$ObjId
$Extend\$UsnJrnl
$Extend\$UsnJrnl:$Max
$Extend\$Quota
Access is Denied.
RootkitRevealer should never report this discrepancy since it uses mechanisms that allow it to access any file,
directory, or registry key on a system.
Visible in Windows API, directory index, but not in MFT.
Visible in Windows API, but not in MFT or directory index.
Visible in Windows API, MFT, but not in directory index.
Visible in directory index, but not Windows API or MFT.
A file system scan consists of three components: the Windows API, the NTFS Master File Table (MFT), and the
NTFS on-disk directory index structures. These discrepancies indicate that a file appears in only one or two of
the scans. A common reason is that a file is either created or deleted during the scans. This is an example of
RootkitRevealer's discrepancy report for a file created during the scanning:
C:\newfile.txt
3/1/2005 5:26 PM
8 bytes
Visible in Windows API, but not in MFT or directory index.
Windows API length not consistent with raw hive data.
Rootkits can attempt to hide themselves by misrepresenting the size of a Registry value so that its contents
aren't visible to the Windows API. You should examine any such discrepancy, though it may also appear as a
result of Registry values that change during a scan.
Type mismatch between Windows API and raw hive data.
Registry values have a type, such as DWORD and REG_SZ, and this discrepancy notes that the type of a value as
reported through the Windows API differs from that of the raw hive data. A rootkit can mask its data by storing
it as a REG_BINARY value, for example, and making the Windows API believe it to be a REG_SZ value; if it stores
a 0 at the start of the data the Windows API will not be able to access subsequent data.
Key name contains embedded nulls.
The Windows API treats key names as null-terminated strings, whereas the kernel treats them as counted
strings. Thus, it is possible to create Registry keys that are visible to the operating system, yet only partially
visible to Registry tools like Regedit. The Reghide sample code at Sysinternals demonstrates this technique,
which is used by both malware and rootkits to hide Registry data. Use the Sysinternals RegDelNull utility to
delete keys with embedded nulls.
Data mismatch between Windows API and raw hive data.
This discrepancy will occur if a Registry value is updated while the Registry scan is in progress. Values that
change frequently include timestamps such as the Microsoft SQL Server uptime value, shown below, and virus
scanner "last scan" values. You should investigate any reported value to ensure that its a valid application or
system Registry value.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\RECOVERYMANAGER\MSSQLServer\uptime_time_utc
3/1/2005 4:33 PM
8 bytes

Rootkit Resources
The following Web sites and books are sources of more information on rootkits:
Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far
Read Mark's blog entry on his discovery and analysis of a Sony rootkit on one of his computers.
Unearthing Rootkits
Mark's June Windows IT Pro Magazine article provides an overview of rootkit technologies and how
RootkitRevealer works.
Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel
This book by Greg Hoglund and Jamie Butler is the most comprehensive treatment of rootkits available.
www.phrack.org
This site stores the archive of Phrack, a cracker-oriented magazine where developers discuss flaws in security-
related products, rootkit techniques, and other malware tricks.
The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense, by Peter Szor
Malware: Fighting Malicious Code, by Ed Skoudis and Lenny Zeltser
Windows Internals, 4th Edition, by Mark Russinovich and Dave Solomon (the book doesn't talk about rootkits,
but understanding the Windows architecture is helpful to understanding rootkits).

Download RootkitRevealer (231 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Sysmon v13.22
6/22/2021 • 14 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich and Thomas Garnier

Published: June 22, 2021

Download Sysmon (2.9 MB)

Introduction
System Monitor (Sysmon) is a Windows system service and device driver that, once installed on a system,
remains resident across system reboots to monitor and log system activity to the Windows event log. It provides
detailed information about process creations, network connections, and changes to file creation time. By
collecting the events it generates using Windows Event Collection or SIEM agents and subsequently analyzing
them, you can identify malicious or anomalous activity and understand how intruders and malware operate on
your network.
Note that Sysmon does not provide analysis of the events it generates, nor does it attempt to protect or hide
itself from attackers.

Overview of Sysmon Capabilities

Sysmon includes the following capabilities:
Logs process creation with full command line for both current and parent processes.
Records the hash of process image files using SHA1 (the default), MD5, SHA256 or IMPHASH.
Multiple hashes can be used at the same time.
Includes a process GUID in process create events to allow for correlation of events even when Windows
reuses process IDs.
Includes a session GUID in each event to allow correlation of events on same logon session.
Logs loading of drivers or DLLs with their signatures and hashes.
Logs opens for raw read access of disks and volumes.
Optionally logs network connections, including each connection’s source process, IP addresses, port
numbers, hostnames and port names.
Detects changes in file creation time to understand when a file was really created. Modification of file create
timestamps is a technique commonly used by malware to cover its tracks.
Automatically reload configuration if changed in the registry.
Rule filtering to include or exclude certain events dynamically.
Generates events from early in the boot process to capture activity made by even sophisticated kernel-mode
malware.

Screenshots
Usage
Common usage featuring simple command-line options to install and uninstall Sysmon, as well as to check and
modify its configuration:
Install: sysmon64 -i [<configfile>]
Update configuration: sysmon64 -c [<configfile>]
Install event manifest: sysmon64 -m
Print schema: sysmon64 -s
Uninstall: sysmon64 -u [force]

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-i Install service and driver. Optionally take a configuration file.

-c Update configuration of an installed Sysmon driver or dump

the current configuration if no other argument is provided.
Optionally takes a configuration file.

-m Install the event manifest (implicitly done on service install as

well).

-s Print configuration schema definition.

-u Uninstall service and driver. Using -u force causes

uninstall to proceed even when some components are not
installed.

The service logs events immediately and the driver installs as a boot-start driver to capture activity from early in
the boot that the service will write to the event log when it starts.
On Vista and higher, events are stored in Applications and Services Logs/Microsoft/Windows/Sysmon/Operational .
On older systems, events are written to the System event log.
If you need more information on configuration files, use the -? config command.
Specify -accepteula to automatically accept the EULA on installation, otherwise you will be interactively
prompted to accept it.
Neither install nor uninstall requires a reboot.
Examples
Install with default settings (process images hashed with SHA1 and no network monitoring)

sysmon -accepteula -i

Install Sysmon with a configuration file (as described below)

sysmon -accepteula -i c:\windows\config.xml

Uninstall

sysmon -u

Dump the current configuration

sysmon -c

Reconfigure an active Sysmon with a configuration file (as described below)

sysmon -c c:\windows\config.xml

Change the configuration to default settings

sysmon -c --

Show the configuration schema

sysmon -s

Events
On Vista and higher, events are stored in Applications and Services Logs/Microsoft/Windows/Sysmon/Operational ,
and on older systems events are written to the System event log. Event timestamps are in UTC standard time.
The following are examples of each event type that Sysmon generates.
Event ID 1: Process creation
The process creation event provides extended information about a newly created process. The full command line
provides context on the process execution. The ProcessGUID field is a unique value for this process across a
domain to make event correlation easier. The hash is a full hash of the file with the algorithms in the HashType
field.
Event ID 2: A process changed a file creation time
The change file creation time event is registered when a file creation time is explicitly modified by a process. This
event helps tracking the real creation time of a file. Attackers may change the file creation time of a backdoor to
make it look like it was installed with the operating system. Note that many processes legitimately change the
creation time of a file; it does not necessarily indicate malicious activity.
Event ID 3: Network connection
The network connection event logs TCP/UDP connections on the machine. It is disabled by default. Each
connection is linked to a process through the ProcessId and ProcessGUID fields. The event also contains the
source and destination host names IP addresses, port numbers and IPv6 status.
Event ID 4: Sysmon service state changed
The service state change event reports the state of the Sysmon service (started or stopped).
Event ID 5: Process terminated
The process terminate event reports when a process terminates. It provides the UtcTime, ProcessGuid and
ProcessId of the process.
Event ID 6: Driver loaded
The driver loaded events provides information about a driver being loaded on the system. The configured
hashes are provided as well as signature information. The signature is created asynchronously for performance
reasons and indicates if the file was removed after loading.
Event ID 7: Image loaded
The image loaded event logs when a module is loaded in a specific process. This event is disabled by default and
needs to be configured with the –l option. It indicates the process in which the module is loaded, hashes and
signature information. The signature is created asynchronously for performance reasons and indicates if the file
was removed after loading. This event should be configured carefully, as monitoring all image load events will
generate a large number of events.
Event ID 8: CreateRemoteThread
The CreateRemoteThread event detects when a process creates a thread in another process. This technique is
used by malware to inject code and hide in other processes. The event indicates the source and target process. It
gives information on the code that will be run in the new thread: StartAddress, StartModule and StartFunction.
Note that StartModule and StartFunction fields are inferred, they might be empty if the starting address is
outside loaded modules or known exported functions.
Event ID 9: RawAccessRead
The RawAccessRead event detects when a process conducts reading operations from the drive using the \\.\
denotation. This technique is often used by malware for data exfiltration of files that are locked for reading, as
well as to avoid file access auditing tools. The event indicates the source process and target device.
Event ID 10: ProcessAccess
The process accessed event reports when a process opens another process, an operation that’s often followed
by information queries or reading and writing the address space of the target process. This enables detection of
hacking tools that read the memory contents of processes like Local Security Authority (Lsass.exe) in order to
steal credentials for use in Pass-the-Hash attacks. Enabling it can generate significant amounts of logging if
there are diagnostic utilities active that repeatedly open processes to query their state, so it generally should
only be done so with filters that remove expected accesses.
Event ID 11: FileCreate
File create operations are logged when a file is created or overwritten. This event is useful for monitoring
autostart locations, like the Startup folder, as well as temporary and download directories, which are common
places malware drops during initial infection.
Event ID 12: RegistryEvent (Object create and delete )
Registry key and value create and delete operations map to this event type, which can be useful for monitoring
for changes to Registry autostart locations, or specific malware registry modifications.
Sysmon uses abbreviated versions of Registry root key names, with the following mappings:
 K EY N A M E A B B REVIAT IO N

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE HKLM

HKEY_USERS HKU

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet00x HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Classes HKCR

Event ID 13: RegistryEvent (Value Set)

This Registry event type identifies Registry value modifications. The event records the value written for Registry
values of type DWORD and QWORD.
Event ID 14: RegistryEvent (Key and Value Rename )
Registry key and value rename operations map to this event type, recording the new name of the key or value
that was renamed.
Event ID 15: FileCreateStreamHash
This event logs when a named file stream is created, and it generates events that log the hash of the contents of
the file to which the stream is assigned (the unnamed stream), as well as the contents of the named stream.
There are malware variants that drop their executables or configuration settings via browser downloads, and
this event is aimed at capturing that based on the browser attaching a Zone.Identifier "mark of the web"
stream.
Event ID 16: ServiceConfigurationChange
This event logs changes in the Sysmon configuration - for example when the filtering rules are updated.
Event ID 17: PipeEvent (Pipe Created)
This event generates when a named pipe is created. Malware often uses named pipes for interprocess
communication.
Event ID 18: PipeEvent (Pipe Connected)
This event logs when a named pipe connection is made between a client and a server.
Event ID 19: WmiEvent (WmiEventFilter activity detected)
When a WMI event filter is registered, which is a method used by malware to execute, this event logs the WMI
namespace, filter name and filter expression.
Event ID 20: WmiEvent (WmiEventConsumer activity detected)
This event logs the registration of WMI consumers, recording the consumer name, log, and destination.
Event ID 21: WmiEvent (WmiEventConsumerToFilter activity detected)
When a consumer binds to a filter, this event logs the consumer name and filter path.
Event ID 22: DNSEvent (DNS query)
This event is generated when a process executes a DNS query, whether the result is successful or fails, cached or
not. The telemetry for this event was added for Windows 8.1 so it is not available on Windows 7 and earlier.
Event ID 23: FileDelete (File Delete archived)
A file was deleted. Additionally to logging the event, the deleted file is also saved in the ArchiveDirectory (which
is C:\Sysmon by default). Under normal operating conditions this directory might grow to an unreasonable size
- see event ID 26: FileDeleteDetected for similar behavior but without saving the deleted files.
Event ID 24: ClipboardChange (New content in the clipboard)
This event is generated when the system clipboard contents change.
Event ID 25: ProcessTampering (Process image change )
This event is generated when process hiding techniques such as "hollow" or "herpaderp" are being detected.
Event ID 26: FileDeleteDetected (File Delete logged)
A file was deleted.
Event ID 255: Error
This event is generated when an error occurred within Sysmon. They can happen if the system is under heavy
load and certain tasked could not be performed or a bug exists in the Sysmon service. You can report any bugs
on the Sysinternals forum or over Twitter (@markrussinovich).

Configuration files
Configuration files can be specified after the -i (installation) or -c (installation) configuration switches. They
make it easier to deploy a preset configuration and to filter captured events.
A simple configuration xml file looks like this:

The configuration file contains a schemaversion attribute on the Sysmon tag. This version is independent from
the Sysmon binary version and allows the parsing of older configuration files. You can get the current schema
version by using the “-? config” command line. Configuration entries are directly under the Sysmon tag and
filters are under the EventFiltering tag.

Configuration Entries
Configuration entries are similar to command line switches and include the following
Configuration entries include the following:

EN T RY VA L UE DESC RIP T IO N

ArchiveDirectory String Name of directories at volume roots

into which copy-on-delete files are
moved. The directory is protected with
a System ACL (you can use PsExec
from Sysinternals to access the
directory using psexec -sid cmd ).
Default: Sysmon
 EN T RY VA L UE DESC RIP T IO N

CheckRevocation Boolean Controls signature revocation checks.

Default: True

CopyOnDeletePE Boolean Preserves deleted executable image

files. Default: False

CopyOnDeleteSIDs Strings Comma-separated list of account SIDs

for which file deletes will be preserved.

CopyOnDeleteExtensions Strings Extensions for files that are preserved

on delete.

CopyOnDeleteProcesses Strings Process name(s) for which file deletes

will be preserved.

DnsLookup Boolean Controls reverse DNS lookup. Default:

True

DriverName String Uses specied name for driver and

service images.

HashAlgorithms Strings Hash algorithm(s) to apply for hashing.

Algorithms supported include MD5,
SHA1, SHA256, IMPHASH and * (all).
Default: None

Command line switches have their configuration entry described in the Sysmon usage output. Parameters are
optional based on the tag. If a command line switch also enables an event, it needs to be configured though its
filter tag. You can specify the -s switch to have Sysmon print the full configuration schema, including event tags
as well as the field names and types for each event. For example, here’s the schema for the RawAccessRead event
type:

<event name="SYSMON_RAWACCESS_READ" value="9" level="Informational "template="RawAccessRead detected"

rulename="RawAccessRead" version="2">
<data name="UtcTime" inType="win:UnicodeString" outType="xs:string"/>
<data name="ProcessGuid" inType="win:GUID"/>
<data name="ProcessId" inType="win:UInt32" outType="win:PID"/>
<data name="Image" inType="win:UnicodeString" outType="xs:string"/>
<data name="Device" inType="win:UnicodeString" outType="xs:string"/>
</event>

Event filtering entries

Event filtering allows you to filter generated events. In many cases events can be noisy and gathering everything
is not possible. For example, you might be interested in network connections only for a certain process, but not
all of them. You can filter the output on the host reducing the data to collect.
Each event has its own filter tag under the EventFiltering node in a configuration file:

ID TA G EVEN T

1 ProcessCreate Process Create

ID TA G EVEN T

2 FileCreateTime File creation time

3 NetworkConnect Network connection detected

4 n/a Sysmon service state change (cannot

be filtered)

5 ProcessTerminate Process terminated

6 DriverLoad Driver Loaded

7 ImageLoad Image loaded

8 CreateRemoteThread CreateRemoteThread detected

9 RawAccessRead RawAccessRead detected

10 ProcessAccess Process accessed

11 FileCreate File created

12 RegistryEvent Registry object added or deleted

13 RegistryEvent Registry value set

14 RegistryEvent Registry object renamed

15 FileCreateStreamHash File stream created

16 n/a Sysmon configuration change (cannot

be filtered)

17 PipeEvent Named pipe created

18 PipeEvent Named pipe connected

19 WmiEvent WMI filter

20 WmiEvent WMI consumer

21 WmiEvent WMI consumer filter

22 DNSQuery DNS query

23 FileDelete File Delete archived

24 ClipboardChange New content in the clipboard

25 ProcessTampering Process image change

 ID TA G EVEN T

26 FileDeleteDetected File Delete logged

You can also find these tags in the event viewer on the task name.
The onmatch filter is applied if events are matched. It can be changed with the onmatch attribute for the filter
tag. If the value is "include" , it means only matched events are included. If it is set to "exclude" , the event will
be included except if a rule match. You can specify both an include filter set and an exclude filter set for each
event ID, where exclude matches take precedence.
Each filter can include zero or more rules. Each tag under the filter tag is a field name from the event. Rules that
specify a condition for the same field name behave as OR conditions, and ones that specify different field name
behave as AND conditions. Field rules can also use conditions to match a value. The conditions are as follows (all
are case insensitive):

C O N DIT IO N DESC RIP T IO N

is Default, values are equals

is any The field is one of the ; delimited values

is not Values are different

contains The field contains this value

contains any The field contains any of the ; delimited values

contains all The field contains any of the ; delimited values

excludes The field does not contain this value

excludes any The field does not contain one or more of the ; delimited
values

excludes all The field does not contain any of the ; delimited values

begin with The field begins with this value

end with The field ends with this value

not begin with The field does not begin with this value

not end with The field does not end with this value

less than Lexicographical comparison is less than zero

more than Lexicographical comparison is more than zero

image Match an image path (full path or only image name). For
example: lsass.exe will match
c:\windows\system32\lsass.exe
You can use a different condition by specifying it as an attribute. This excludes network activity from processes
with iexplore.exe in their path:

<NetworkConnect onmatch="exclude">
<Image condition="contains">iexplore.exe</Image>
</NetworkConnect>

To have Sysmon report which rule match resulted in an event being logged, add names to rules:

<NetworkConnect onmatch="exclude">
<Image name="network iexplore" condition="contains">iexplore.exe</Image>
</NetworkConnect>

You can use both include and exclude rules for the same tag, where exclude rules override include rules. Within a
rule, filter conditions have OR behavior.
In the sample configuration shown earlier, the networking filter uses both an include and exclude rule to capture
activity to port 80 and 443 by all processes except those that have iexplore.exe in their name.
It is also possible to override the way that rules are combined by using a rule group which allows the rule
combine type for one or more events to be set explicity to AND or OR.
The following example demonstrates this usage. In the first rule group, a process create event will be generated
when timeout.exe is executed only with a command line argument of 100 , but a process terminate event will
be generated for the termination of ping.exe and timeout.exe .

<EventFiltering>
<RuleGroup name="group 1" groupRelation="and">
<ProcessCreate onmatch="include">
<Image condition="contains">timeout.exe</Image>
<CommandLine condition="contains">100</CommandLine>
</ProcessCreate>
</RuleGroup>
<RuleGroup groupRelation="or">
<ProcessTerminate onmatch="include">
<Image condition="contains">timeout.exe</Image>
<Image condition="contains">ping.exe</Image>
</ProcessTerminate>
</RuleGroup>
<ImageLoad onmatch="include"/>
</EventFiltering>

Download Sysmon (2.9 MB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows 7 and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 R2 and higher.
 Sysinternals System Information Utilities
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

Autoruns
See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns
also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.
ClockRes
View the resolution of the system clock, which is also the maximum timer resolution.
Coreinfo
Coreinfo is a command-line utility that shows you the mapping between logical processors and the physical
processor, NUMA node, and socket on which they reside, as well as the cache’s assigned to each logical
processor.
Handle
This handy command-line utility will show you what files are open by which processes, and much more.
LiveKd
Use Microsoft kernel debuggers to examine a live system.
LoadOrder
See the order in which devices are loaded on your WinNT/2K system.
LogonSessions
List the active logon sessions on a system.
PendMoves
Enumerate the list of file rename and delete commands that will be executed the next boot.
Process Explorer
Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and
more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.
Process Monitor
Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.
ProcFeatures
This applet reports processor and Windows support for Physical Address Extensions and No Execute buffer
overflow protection.
PsInfo
Obtain information about a system.
PsLoggedOn
Show users logged on to a system
PsTools
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
RAMMap
An advanced physical memory usage analysis utility that presents usage information in different ways on its
several different tabs.
WinObj
The ultimate Object Manager namespace viewer is here.
 ClockRes v2.1
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download ClockRes (494 KB)

Introduction
Ever wondered what the resolution of the system clock was, or perhaps the maximum timer resolution that your
application could obtain? The answer lies in a simple function named GetSystemTimeAdjustment, and the
ClockRes applet performs the function and shows you the result.

Download ClockRes (494 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Coreinfo v3.52
4/21/2021 • 4 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: February 22, 2021

Download Coreinfo (370 KB)

Introduction
Coreinfo is a command-line utility that shows you the mapping between logical processors and the physical
processor, NUMA node, and socket on which they reside, as well as the cache’s assigned to each logical
processor. It uses the Windows’ GetLogicalProcessorInformation function to obtain this information and prints it
to the screen, representing a mapping to a logical processor with an asterisk e.g. ‘*’. Coreinfo is useful for
gaining insight into the processor and cache topology of your system.

Installation
Extract the archive to a directory and then run Coreinfo by typing from that directory Coreinfo in the console
on a 32 bit Windows version or Coreinfo64 for a 64 bit version.

Using CoreInfo
For each resource it shows a map of the OS-visible processors that correspond to the specified resources, with
'*' representing the applicable processors. For example, on a 4-core system, a line in the cache output with a
map of shared by cores 3 and 4.
Usage: coreinfo [-c][-f ][-g][-l][-n][-s][-m][-v]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-c Dump information on cores.

-f Dump core feature information.

-g Dump information on groups.

-l Dump information on caches.

-n Dump information on NUMA nodes.

-s Dump information on sockets.

-m Dump NUMA access cost.

-v Dump only virtualization-related features including support

for second level address translation.

(requires administrative rights on Intel systems).

All options except -v are selected by default.
Coreinfo Output:

Coreinfo v3.03 - Dump information on system CPU and memory topology

Copyright (C) 2008-2011 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU W3520 @ 2.67GHz

Intel64 Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 5, GenuineIntel
EM64T * Supports 64-bit mode
VMX - Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
SVM - Supports AMD hardware-assisted virtualization
HYPERVISOR * Hypervisor is present
HTT * Supports hyper-threading

SMX - Supports Intel trusted execution

SKINIT - Supports AMD SKINIT
EIST * Supports Enhanced Intel Speedstep

NX * Supports no-execute page protection

PAGE1GB - Supports 1GB large pages
PAE * Supports &gt; 32-bit physical addresses
PAT * Supports Page Attribute Table
PSE * Supports 4-MB pages
PSE36 * Supports &gt; 32-bit address 4-MB pages
PGE * Supports global bit in page tables
SS * Supports bus snooping for cache operations
VME * Supports Virtual-8086 mode

FPU * Implements i387 FP instructions

MMX * Supports MMX instruction set
MMXEXT - Implements AMD MMX extensions
3DNOW - Supports 3DNow! instructions
3DNOWEXT - Supports 3DNow! extension instructions
SSE * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions
SSE2 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
SSE3 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSSE3 * Supports Supplemental SIMD Extensions 3
SSE4.1 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1
SSE4.2 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2

AES - Supports AES extensions

AVX - Supports AVX intruction extensions
FMA - Supports FMA extensions using YMM state
MSR * Implements RDMSR/WRMSR instructions
MTTR * Supports Mmeory Type Range Registers
XSAVE - Supports XSAVE/XRSTOR instructions
OSXSAVE - Supports XSETBV/XGETBV instructions

CMOV * Supports CMOVcc instruction

CLFSH * Supports CLFLUSH instruction
CX8 * Supports compare and exchange 8-byte instructions
CX16 * Supports CMPXCHG16B instruction
DCA - Supports prefetch from memory-mapped device
F16C - Supports half-precision instruction
FXSR * Supports FXSAVE/FXSTOR instructions
FFXSR - Supports optimized FXSAVE/FSRSTOR instruction
MONITOR - Supports MONITOR and MWAIT instructions
MOVBE - Supports MOVBE instruction
PCLULDQ - Supports PCLMULDQ instruction
POPCNT * Supports POPCNT instruction
SEP * Supports fast system call instructions

DE * Supports I/O breakpoints including CR4.DE

DTES64 - Can write history of 64-bit branch addresses
DS - Implements memory-resident debug buffer
DS-CPL - Supports Debug Store feature with CPL
DS-CPL - Supports Debug Store feature with CPL
PCID - Supports PCIDs and settable CR4.PCIDE
PDCM - Supports Performance Capabilities MSR
RDTSCP * Supports RDTSCP instruction
TSC * Supports RDTSC instruction
TSC-DEADLINE - Local APIC supports one-shot deadline timer
xTPR * Supports disabling task priority messages

ACPI * Implements MSR for power management

TM * Implements thermal monitor circuitry
TM2 * Implements Thermal Monitor 2 control
APIC * Implements software-accessible local APIC
x2APIC - Supports x2APIC

CNXT-ID - L1 data cache mode adaptive or BIOS

MCE * Supports Machine Check, INT18 and CR4.MCE

MCA * Implements Machine Check Architecture
PBE * Supports use of FERR#/PBE# pin

PSN - Implements 96-bit processor serial number

Logical to Physical Processor Map:

*--- Physical Processor 0
-*-- Physical Processor 1
--*- Physical Processor 2
---* Physical Processor 3

Logical Processor to Socket Map:

**** Socket 0

Logical Processor to NUMA Node Map:

**** NUMA Node 0

Logical Processor to Cache Map:

*--- Data Cache 0, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
*--- Instruction Cache 0, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 4, LineSize 64
*--- Unified Cache 0, Level 2, 256 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
-*-- Data Cache 1, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
-*-- Instruction Cache 1, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 4, LineSize 64
-*-- Unified Cache 1, Level 2, 256 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
--*- Data Cache 2, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
--*- Instruction Cache 2, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 4, LineSize 64
--*- Unified Cache 2, Level 2, 256 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
---* Data Cache 3, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
---* Instruction Cache 3, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 4, LineSize 64
---* Unified Cache 3, Level 2, 256 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64
**** Unified Cache 4, Level 3, 8 MB, Assoc 16, LineSize 64

Logical Processor to Group Map:

**** Group 0

Download Coreinfo (370 KB)

 LiveKd v5.63
3/24/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich and Ken Johnson

Published: April 28, 2020

Download LiveKd (700 KB)

Introduction
LiveKD, a utility I wrote for the CD included with Inside Windows 2000, 3rd Edition, is now freely available.
LiveKD allows you to run the Kd and Windbg Microsoft kernel debuggers, which are part of the Debugging Tools
for Windows package, locally on a live system. Execute all the debugger commands that work on crash dump
files to look deep inside the system. See the Debugging Tools for Windows documentation and our book for
information on how to explore a system with the kernel debuggers.
While the latest versions of Windbg and Kd have a similar capability on Windows Vista and Server 2008, LiveKD
enables more functionality, such as viewing thread stacks with the !thread command, than Windbg and Kd's own
live kernel debugging facility.

Installation
First download and install the Debugging Tools for Windows package from Microsoft's web site:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/hardware/ff551063(v=vs.85).aspx
If you install the tools to their default directory of \Program Files\Microsoft\Debugging Tools for Windows, you
can run LiveKD from any directory; otherwise you should copy LiveKD to the directory in which the tools are
installed.
If you haven't installed symbols for the system on which you run LiveKD, LiveKD will ask if you want it to
automatically configure the system to use Microsoft's symbol server (see the Debugging Tools for Windows
documentation for information on symbol files and the Microsoft symbol server).
NOTE: The Microsoft debugger will complain that it can't find symbols for LIVEKDD.SYS. This is expected, since I
have not made symbols for LIVEKDD.SYS available, and does not affect the behavior of the debugger.

Using LiveKd
usage:
liveKd [[-w]|[-k <debugger>]|[-o filename]] [-vsym] [-m[flags] [[-mp process]|[pid]]][debugger
options]
liveKd [[-w]|[-k <debugger>]|[-o filename]] -ml [debugger options]
liveKd [[-w]|[-k <debugger>]|[-o filename]] [[-hl]|[-hv <VM name> [[-p]|[-hvd]]]] [debugger
options]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-hv Specifies the name or GUID of the Hyper-V VM to debug.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-hvd Includes hypervisor pages (Windows 8.1 and above only).

-hvl Lists the names and GUIDs of running Hyper-V VMs.

-k Specifies complete path and filename of debugger image to

execute

-m Creates a mirror dump, which is a consistent view of kernel

memory.
Only kernel mode memory will be available, and this option
may need significant amounts of available physical memory.
A flags mask that specifies which regions to include may
optionally be provided (drawn from the following table,
default 0x18F8):
0001 - process private, 0002 - mapped file,
0004 - shared section, 0008 - page table pages,
0010 - paged pool, 0020 - non-paged pool,
0040 - system PTEs, 0080 - session pages,
0100 - metadata files, 0200 - AWE user pages,
0400 - driver pages, 0800 - kernel stacks,
1000 - WS metadata, 2000 - large pages
The default captures most kernel memory contents and is
recommended.
This option may be used with -o to save faster, consistent
dumps.
Mirror dumps require Windows Vista or Windows Server
2008 or above.
Sysinternals RamMap provides a graphical summary of the
distribution of the available memory regions that can be
selected for inclusion.

-ml Generate live dump using native support (Windows 8.1 and
above only).

-mp Specifies a single process whose user mode memory

contents should be included in a mirror dump. Only effective
with the -m option.

-o Saves a memory.dmp to disk instead of launching the

debugger.

-p Pauses the target Hyper-V VM while LiveKd is active

(recommended for use with -o). Specifies the name or GUID
of the Hyper-V VM to debug.

-hvl Lists the names and GUIDs of running Hyper-V VMs.

-vsym Displays verbose debugging information about symbol load

operations.

-w Runs windbg instead of kd

All other options are passed through to the debugger.

Note : Use Ctrl-Break to terminate and restart the debugger if it hangs.
By default LiveKd runs kd.exe.
 Download LiveKd (700 KB)
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 LoadOrder v1.01
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download LoadOrder (318 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
This applet shows you the order that a Windows NT or Windows 2000 system loads device drivers. Note that on
Windows 2000 plug-and-play drivers may actually load in a different order than the one calculated, because
plug-and-play drivers are loaded on demand during device detection and enumeration.

Download LoadOrder (318 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 ProcFeatures v1.1
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006
Retired: September 1, 2011

IMPORTANT
ProcFeatures has been retired, as the latest additions to Coreinfo make this utility obsolete. Coreinfo v3 now shows the
processor features supported by the system’s processors.
 PsInfo v1.78
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
PsInfo is a command-line tool that gathers key information about the local or remote Windows NT/2000
system, including the type of installation, kernel build, registered organization and owner, number of processors
and their type, amount of physical memory, the install date of the system, and if its a trial version, the expiration
date.

Installation
Just copy PsInfo onto your executable path, and type "psinfo".

Using PsInfo
By default PsInfo shows information for the local system. Specify a remote computer name to obtain
information from the remote system. Since PsInfo relies on remote Registry access to obtain its data, the remote
system must be running the Remote Registry service and the account from which you run PsInfo must have
access to the HKLM\System portion of the remote Registry.
In order to aid in automated Service Pack updates, PsInfo returns as a value the Service Pack number of system
(e.g. 0 for no service pack, 1 for SP 1, etc).
Usage: psinfo [[\\computer[,computer[,..] | @file [-u user
[-p psswd]]] [-h] [-s] [-d] [-c [-t delimiter]] [filter]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

\\computer Perform the command on the remote computer or

computers specified. If you omit the computer name the
command runs on the local system, and if you specify a
wildcard (\\*), the command runs on all computers in the
current domain.

@file Run the command on each computer listed in the text file
specified.

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p Specifies optional password for user name. If you omit this

you will be prompted to enter a hidden password.

-h Show list of installed hotfixes.

 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-s Show list of installed applications.

-d Show disk volume information.

-c Print in CSV format.

-t The default delimiter for the -c option is a comma, but can

be overriden with the specified character.

filter Psinfo will only show data for the field matching the filter.
e.g. "psinfo service" lists only the service pack field.

Example Output
C:\> psinfo \\development -h -d

PsInfo v1.6 - local and remote system information viewer

Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

System information for \\DEVELOPMENT:

Uptime: 28 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes, 12 seconds
Kernel version: Microsoft Windows XP, Multiprocessor Free
Product type Professional
Product version: 5.1
Service pack: 0
Kernel build number: 2600
Registered organization: Sysinternals
Registered owner: Mark Russinovich
Install date: 1/2/2002, 5:29:21 PM
Activation status: Activated
IE version: 6.0000
System root: C:\WINDOWS
Processors: 2
Processor speed: 1.0 GHz
Processor type: Intel Pentium III
Physical memory: 1024 MB
Volume Type Format Label Size Free Free
A: Removable 0%
C: Fixed NTFS WINXP 7.8 GB 1.3 GB 16%
D: Fixed NTFS DEV 10.7 GB 809.7 MB 7%
E: Fixed NTFS SRC 4.5 GB 1.8 GB 41%
F: Fixed NTFS MSDN 2.4 GB 587.5 MB 24%
G: Fixed NTFS GAMES 8.0 GB 1.0 GB 13%
H: CD-ROM CDFS JEDIOUTCAST 633.6 MB 0%
I: CD-ROM 0%
Q: Remote 0%
T: Fixed NTFS Test 502.0 MB 496.7 MB 99%
OS Hot Fix Installed
Q147222 1/2/2002
Q309521 1/4/2002
Q311889 1/4/2002
Q313484 1/4/2002
Q314147 3/6/2002
Q314862 3/13/2002
Q315000 1/8/2002
Q315403 3/13/2002
Q317277 3/20/2002
How it Works
PsInfo uses the Remote Registry API to read system information from a system's Registry, and WMI to
determine whether Windows XP installations have been activated.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

 RAMMap v1.60
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: October 15, 2020

Download RAMMap (488 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Have you ever wondered exactly how Windows is assigning physical memory, how much file data is cached in
RAM, or how much RAM is used by the kernel and device drivers? RAMMap makes answering those questions
easy. RAMMap is an advanced physical memory usage analysis utility for Windows Vista and higher. It presents
usage information in different ways on its several different tabs:
Use Counts: usage summary by type and paging list
Processes: process working set sizes
Priority Summary: prioritized standby list sizes
Physical Pages: per-page use for all physical memory
Physical Ranges: physical memory addresses
File Summary: file data in RAM by file
File Details: individual physical pages by file
Use RAMMap to gain understanding of the way Windows manages memory, to analyze application memory
usage, or to answer specific questions about how RAM is being allocated. RAMMap’s refresh feature enables you
to update the display and it includes support for saving and loading memory snapshots.
For definitions of the labels RAMMap uses as well as to learn about the physical-memory allocation algorithms
used by the Windows memory manager, please see Windows Internals, 5^th^ Edition.

Related Links
Windows Internals Book The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows
internals, by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark
Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for
 troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Download RAMMap (488 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.

Learn More
Defrag Tools: #6 - RAMMap
In this episode of Defrag Tools, Andrew Richards and Larry Larsen cover using RAMMap to see how RAM is
being used and tell if there has been any memory pressure.
 WinObj v3.10
5/25/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: May 25, 2021

Download WinObj (1.4 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
WinObj is a must-have tool if you are a system administrator concerned about security, a developer tracking
down object-related problems, or just curious about the Object Manager namespace.
WinObj is a 32-bit Windows NT program that uses the native Windows NT API (provided by NTDLL.DLL) to
access and display information on the NT Object Manager's namespace. Winobj may seem similar to the
Microsoft SDK's program of the same name, but the SDK version suffers from numerous significant bugs that
prevent it from displaying accurate information (e.g. its handle and reference counting information are totally
broken). In addition, our WinObj understands many more object types. Finally, Version 3.0 of our WinObj has
user-interface enhancements (including a dark theme), knows how to open device objects, provides dynamic
updates when objects are created/destroyed, and allows searching and filtering.

Installation and Use

There is no device driver component to WinObj, so you can run it like any Win32 program.
How it Works
The Object Manager is in charge of managing NT objects. As part of this responsibility, it maintains an internal
namespace where various operating system components, device drivers and Win32 programs can store and
lookup objects. The native NT API provides routines that allow user-mode programs to browse the namespace
and query the status of objects located there, but the interfaces are undocumented.

More Information
Helen Custer's Inside Windows NT provides a good overview of the Object Manager name space, and Mark's
October 1997 WindowsITPro Magazine column, "Inside the Object Manager", is (of course) an excellent
overview.

Download WinObj (1.4 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 Sysinternals Miscellaneous Utilities
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

AD Explorer
Active Directory Explorer is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor.
AdRestore
Restore tombstoned Active Directory objects in Server 2003 domains.
Autologon
Bypass password screen during logon.
BgInfo
This fully-configurable program automatically generates desktop backgrounds that include important
information about the system including IP addresses, computer name, network adapters, and more.
BlueScreen
This screen saver not only accurately simulates Blue Screens, but simulated reboots as well (complete with
CHKDSK), and works on Windows Vista, Server 2008 and higher.
Ctrl2cap
This is a kernel-mode driver that demonstrates keyboard input filtering just above the keyboard class driver in
order to turn caps-locks into control keys. Filtering at this level allows conversion and hiding of keys before NT
even "sees" them. Ctrl2cap also shows how to use NtDisplayString() to print messages to the initialization blue-
screen.
DebugView
Another first from Sysinternals: This program intercepts calls made to DbgPrint by device drivers and
OutputDebugString made by Win32 programs. It allows for viewing and recording of debug session output on
your local machine or across the Internet without an active debugger.
Desktops
This new utility enables you to create up to four virtual desktops and to use a tray interface or hotkeys to
preview what’s on each desktop and easily switch between them.
Hex2dec
Convert hex numbers to decimal and vice versa.
NotMyFault
Notmyfault is a tool that you can use to crash, hang, and cause kernel memory leaks on your Windows system.
PsLogList
Dump event log records.
PsTools
The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote
computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
RegDelNull
Scan for and delete Registry keys that contain embedded null-characters that are otherwise undeleteable by
standard Registry-editing tools.
Registry Usage (RU)
View the registry space usage for the specified registry key.
RegJump
Jump to the registry path you specify in Regedit.
Strings
Search for ANSI and UNICODE strings in binary images.
ZoomIt
Presentation utility for zooming and drawing on the screen.
 BgInfo v4.28
4/21/2021 • 6 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: September 20, 2019

Download BgInfo (3.4 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
How many times have you walked up to a system in your office and needed to click through several diagnostic
windows to remind yourself of important aspects of its configuration, such as its name, IP address, or operating
system version? If you manage multiple computers you probably need BGInfo. It automatically displays relevant
information about a Windows computer on the desktop's background, such as the computer name, IP address,
service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background colors, and can place it
in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display as the background for the logon
screen.
Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits, you don't have to worry about it consuming
system resources or interfering with other applications.
Sysinternals BgInfo

Installation and Use

See Mark's Windows IT Pro Magazine Power Tools article for a primer on using BgInfo. If you have questions or
problems, please visit the Sysinternals BgInfo Forum.
By placing BGInfo in your Star tup folder, you can ensure that the system information being displayed is up to
date each time you boot. Once you've settled on the information to be displayed, use the command-line option
/timer:0 to update the display without showing the dialog box.
You can also use the Windows Scheduler to run BGInfo on a regular basis to ensure long-running systems are
kept up to date.
If you create a BGInfo configuration file (using the File|Save Settings menu item) you can automatically
import and use those settings on other systems by adding the /I<path> or /iq<path> command line option.

Using BgInfo
When you run BGInfo it shows you the appearance and content of its default desktop background. If left
untouched it will automatically apply these settings and exit after its 10 second count-down timer expires.
Selecting any button or menu item will disable the timer, allowing you to customize the layout and content of
the background information.
If you want BGInfo to edit or use a configuration stored in a file (instead of the default configuration which is
stored in the registry) specify the name of the file on the command line:
BGInfo MyConfig.bgi

Appearance Buttons
Fields: Selects what information appears on the desktop, and the order in which it is displayed. For networking
fields (NIC, IP, MAC, etc.) a separate entry is created for each network card on the system. Use the Custom button
to add special information you define yourself.
Background: Selects the color and/or wallpaper to use for the background. If you select the Copy existing
settings option then BGInfo will use whatever information is currently selected by the logged on user. This
option allows end users to personalize their desktop while still displaying the BGInfo information.
Position: Selects the location on the screen at which to place the text. If some items are very long (for example
some network card names) you can use the Limit Lines to item to wrap them. The Compensate for Taskbar
position checkbox adjusts the position of the text to ensure that it is not covered by the Taskbar. The Multiple
Monitor Configuration button allows you to specify how multiple monitors attached to a single console
should be handled.
Desktops: Selects which desktops are updated when the configuration is applied. By default only the User
Desktop wallpaper is changed. Enabling the Logon Desktop for Console users option specifies that the
wallpaper should be displayed on the logon desktop that is presented before anyone has logged onto the
system. On Windows 95/98/ME systems the same desktop is used for users and the login screen, so this option
has no effect. Enabling the Logon Desktop for Terminal Ser vices users option specifies that the wallpaper
should be displayed on the Terminal Services login screen. This option is useful only on servers running
Terminal Services.
Preview: Displays the background as it will appear when applied to your system.
Configuration Menu Items
These are options that control how the bitmap is produced, where it is located and how to import/export
settings.
File | Open: Opens a BGInfo configuration file.
File | Save As: Saves a copy of the current BGInfo configuration to a new file. Once created, you can have
BGInfo use the file later by simply specifying it on the command line, or by using File|Open menu option.
File|Reset Default Settings: Removes all configuration information and resets BGInfo to its default (install-
time) state. Use this if you can't determine how to undo a change, or if BGInfo becomes confused about the
current state of the bitmap.
File|Database: Specifies a .XLS, .MDB or .TXT file or a connection string to an SQL database that BGInfo should
use to store the information it generates. Use this to collect a history of one or more systems on your network.
You must ensure that all systems that access the file have the same version of MDAC and JET database support
installed. It is recommended you use at least MDAC 2.5 and JET 4.0. If specifying an XLS file the file must already
exist.
If you prefer to have BGInfo update the database without modifying the user's wallpaper you can unselect all
desktops in the Desktops dialog; BGInfo will still update the database.
Bitmap|256 Colors: Limits the bitmap to 256 colors. This option produces a smaller bitmap.
Bitmap|High Color/True Color : Creates a 16-bit or 24-bit color bitmap.
Bitmap|Match Display: Creates a bitmap with color depth matching that of the display. Because the bitmap
generated by BGInfo is not updated when a user changes the display's color depth you may see unexpected
results (especially dithering of the text and background) with some combinations of bitmap and display depth.
Bitmap|Location: Specifies the location to place the output bitmap file. On Terminal Services servers the
bitmap should be placed in a location that is unique to each user.
Edit|Inser t Image: Allows you to insert a bitmap image into the output. Because BGInfo's configuration
information is stored in the registry and Windows limits the size of registry values you may encounter errors
when inserting larger images. On Windows 9x/Me systems the limit is 16K, while on NT/2000/XP systems the
limit is 64K.

Command Line Options

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

<path> Specifies the name of a configuration file to use for the

current session. Changes to the configuration are
automatically saved back to the file when OK or Apply is
pressed. If this parameter is not present BGInfo uses the
default configuration information which is stored in the
registry under the current user
("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Winternals\BGInfo").

/timer Specifies the timeout value for the countdown timer, in

seconds. Specifying zero will update the display without
displaying the configuration dialog. Specifying 300 seconds
or longer disables the timer altogether.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

/popup Causes BGInfo to create a popup window containing the

configured information without updating the desktop. The
information is formatted exactly as it would if displayed on
the desktop, but resides in a fitted window instead. When
using this option the history database is not updated.

/silent Suppresses error messages.

/taskbar Causes BGInfo to place an icon in the taskbar's status area

without updating the desktop. Clicking the icon causes the
configured information to appear in a popup window. When
using this option the history database is not updated.

/all Specifies that BGInfo should change the wallpaper for any
and all users currently logged in to the system. This option is
useful within a Terminal Services environment, or when
BGInfo is scheduled to run periodically on a system used by
more than one person (see Using a Schedule below).

/log Causes BGInfo to write errors to the specified log file instead
of generating a warning dialog box. This is useful for tracking
down errors that occur when BGInfo is run under the
scheduler.

/r tf Causes BGInfo to write its output text to an RTF file. All

formatting information and colors are included.

Download BgInfo ] (3.4 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 BlueScreen Screen Saver v3.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download BlueScreen (64 KB)

Introduction
One of the most feared colors in the NT world is blue. The infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) will pop up on
an NT system whenever something has gone terribly wrong. Bluescreen is a screen saver that not only
authentically mimics a BSOD, but will simulate startup screens seen during a system boot.
On NT 4.0 installations it simulates chkdsk of disk drives with errors!
On Windows 2000, Windows 95, and Windows 98 it presents the Windows 2000 startup splash screen,
complete with rotating progress band and progress control updates!
On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 it presents the XP/Server 2003 startup splash screen with
progress bar!
Bluescreen cycles between different Blue Screens and simulated boots every 15 seconds or so. Virtually all the
information shown on Bluescreen's BSOD and system start screen is obtained from your system configuration -
its accuracy will fool even advanced NT developers. For example, the NT build number, processor revision,
loaded drivers and addresses, disk drive characteristics, and memory size are all taken from the system
Bluescreen is running on.
Use Bluescreen to amaze your friends and scare your enemies!

Installation and Use

Note: before you can run Bluescreen on Windows 95 or 98, you must copy \winnt\system32\ntoskrnl.exe from a
Windows 2000 system to your \Windows directory. Simply copy Sysinternals BLUESCRN.SCR to your
\system32 directory if on Windows NT/2K, or \Windows\System directory if on Windows 95 or 98. Right click
on the desktop to bring up the Display settings dialog and then select the "Screen Saver" tab. Use the pull down
list to find "Sysinternals Bluescreen" and apply it as your new screen saver. Select the "Settings" button to enable
fake disk activity, which adds an extra touch of realism!

More Information
You can find out how real Blue Screens are generated, and what the information on the Blue Screen means in
my December 1997 Windows ITPro Magazine NT Internals column, "Inside the Blue Screen."
Note: Some virus scanners flag the Bluescreen screen saver as a virus. If this is the case with your
virus scanner, you may not be able to use this screen saver.

Download BlueScreen (64 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 CpuStres v2.0
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Pavel Yosifovich
Published: July 18, 2018

Download CpuStres (2.2 MB)

Introduction
CpuStres
CpuStres is a utility that can be used to simulate CPU activity by running up to 64 threads in a tight loop.
Each thread can be started, paused or stopped independently and can be configured with the following
parameters:
Activity Level This can be Low, Medium, Busy or Maximum which controls how long the thread sleepss
between cycles. Setting this value to Maximum causes the thread to run continuously.
Priority This controls the thread priority. Refer to Windows Internals by Mark Russinovich for details on
thread priorities
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2003 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher

Related Links
Windows Internals Book The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows
internals, by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon.

Download
Download CpuStres (2.2 MB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Ctrl2Cap v2.0
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 1, 2006

Download Ctrl2Cap (48 KB)

Introduction
Ctrl2cap is a kernel-mode device driver that filters the system's keyboard class driver in order to convert caps-
lock characters into control characters. People like myself that migrated to NT from UNIX are used to having the
control key located where the caps-lock key is on the standard PC keyboard, so a utility like this is essential for
our editing well-being.

Installation and Use

Install Ctrl2cap running the command "ctrl2cap /install" from the directory into which you've unzipped the
Ctrl2cap files. To uninstall type "ctrl2cap /uninstall".

How Ctrl2cap Works

On NT 4 Ctrlcap is actually quite trivial. It simply attaches itself to the keyboard class driver so that it will catch
keyboard read requests. For each request, it posts an I/O completion callback, at which point it takes a peek at
the scancode that is being returned. If it happens to be a caps-lock, ctrl2cap changes it into a left-control.
On Win2K Ctrl2cap is a WDM filter driver that layers in the keyboard class device's stack above the keyboard
class device. This is in contrast to the Win2K DDK's kbfiltr example that layers itself between the i8042 port
device and the keyboard class device. I chose to layer on top of the keyboard class device for several reasons:
It means that the Ctrl2cap IRP_MJ_READ interception and manipulation code is shared between the NT 4 and
Win2K versions.
I don't need to supply an INF file and have the user go through the Device Manager to install Ctrl2cap - I
simply modify the appropriate Registry value (the keyboard class devices's
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class UpperFilters value).
The disadvantage of my approach is (and this an advantage or disadvantage depending on your point of view):
Because I don't install with an INF file via the Device Manager, the user is not warned that the Ctrl2cap driver
file is not digitally signed by Microsoft.
In this particular case, I felt that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. However, before you model a
Win2K keyboard filter on Ctrl2cap I strongly suggest that you study the kbfiltr example from the Win2K DDK.
Kbfiltr's interception point in the key input sequence makes it very easy for kbfiltr to inject keystrokes into the
input stream.

More Information
For more information on writing filter drivers (drivers that attach themselves to other drivers so that they can
see their input and/or output), here are sources to check out:
 The Windows NT and Windows 2000 DDK sample \src\storage\filter\diskperf
The Windows 2000 DDK sample \src\input\kbfiltr
"Examining the Windows NT File System," By Mark Russinovich, Dr. Dobb's Journal, February 1997
The accompanying file system filter driver, Filemon

Download Ctrl2Cap (48 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 DebugView v4.90
3/24/2021 • 4 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: April 23, 2019

Download DebugView (1.3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
DebugView is an application that lets you monitor debug output on your local system, or any computer on the
network that you can reach via TCP/IP. It is capable of displaying both kernel-mode and Win32 debug output, so
you don't need a debugger to catch the debug output your applications or device drivers generate, nor do you
need to modify your applications or drivers to use non-standard debug output APIs.

DebugView Capture
Under Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and Vista DebugView will capture:
Win32 OutputDebugString
Kernel-mode DbgPrint
All kernel-mode variants of DbgPrint implemented in Windows XP and Server 2003
DebugView also extracts kernel-mode debug output generated before a crash from Window's 2000/XP crash
dump files if DebugView was capturing at the time of the crash.

DebugView Capabilities
DebugView has a powerful array of features for controlling and managing debug output.
Features new to version 4.6:
Suppor t for Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit
Features new to version 4.5:
Suppor t for log-file rollover : To better support long-running captures, DebugView can now create a new
log file each day, optionally clearing the display when doing so.
Features new to version 4.4:
Suppor t for Windows Ser ver 2003 64-bit Edition and Windows XP 64-bit Edition for
x64:DebugView now captures kernel-mode debug output on 64-bit versions of Windows.
Clock-time toggle: you can now toggle between clock time and elapsed time modes.
Features new to version 4.3:
Suppor t for Windows XP SP2:DebugView now captures kernel-mode debug output on Windows XP SP2.
More highlighting filters: Many people have asked for more highlighting filters.
Log file wrapping: A new log file option has DebugView wrap around to the start of the log file when the
specified size limit is reached.
 Larger buffers: Larger Win32 and kernel-mode buffers lessen the chance of dropped debug output.
Clear-output string: When DebugView sees the special debug output string "DBGVIEWCLEAR" it clears the
output.
Client minimize-to-tray: You can now run the client minimized in the tray.
Features new to version 4.2:
Kernel-hook bug fixed:DebugView sometimes mistakenly report that it couldn't hook kernel-mode debug
output on Windows XP and Server 2003.
Client global-capture option: A new option allows the client to capture console Win32 debug output on
Terminal Server systems when run from a non-console session.
Filtering improved: Filters can be much longer and now apply to Win32 process IDs when process IDs are
included in the output.
Crash-dump suppor t improved: Several bugs related to extracting kernel-mode output from crash
dumps are fixed and DebugView now loads resulting log files.
More highlight filters:DebugView now has 10 highlight filters, up from 5.
Inser t comments: A new menu item lets you insert comments into output.
New switches: New command-line switches allow you to specify history depth and load log files.
Better balloon tips: If an output line is wider than the screen its mouse hover balloon tip word wraps.
Features new to version 4.1:
Save and load filters: You can save and load filters, including the highlighting colors.
Load saved logs: You can now load a log file back into the DebugView output window.
Capture boot-time kernel-mode debug output: Under Windows 2000, you can use DebugView to
capture debug output generated by drivers from the earliest point in the boot process.
Here is a list highlighting some of DebugView 's other features:
Remote monitoring: Capture kernel-mode and/or Win32 debug output from any computer accessible via
TCP/IP - even across the Internet. You can monitor multiple remote computers simultaneously. DebugView
will even install its client software itself if you are running it on a Windows 2000 system and are capturing
from another Windows 2000 system in the same Network Neighborhood.
Most-recent-filter lists:DebugView remembers your most recent filter selections, with an interface that
makes it easy to reselect them.
Process ID option: Toggle the display of process IDs for Win32 debug output.
Clipboard copy: Select multiple lines in the output window and copy their contents to the clipboard.
Log-to-file: Write debug output to a file as its being captured.
Printing: Print all or part of captured debug output to a printer.
One-file payload:DebugView is implemented as one file.
Crash-Dump Suppor t:DebugView can recover its buffers from a crash dump and save the output to a log
file so that users can send you the output your Windows driver generated right up to the time of a crash.
The on-line help file describes all these features, and more, in detail.

Installation and Use

Simply execute the DebugView program file (dbgview.exe) and DebugView will immediately start capturing
debug output. Note that if you run DebugView on Windows 2000/XP you must have administrative privilege to
view kernel-mode debug output. Menus, hot-keys, or toolbar buttons can be used to clear the window, save the
monitored data to a file, search output, change the window font, and more. The on-line help describes all of
DebugView 's features.
This is a screenshot of DebugView capturing Win32 debug output from a remote system. Note the presence of a
highlighting filter.

Download DebugView (1.3 MB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Desktops v2.0
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: October 17, 2012

Download Desktops (61 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse
the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the
windows you're not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch
desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the
hotkeys.

Using Desktops
Unlike other virtual desktop utilities that implement their desktops by showing the windows that are active on a
desktop and hiding the rest, Sysinternals Desktops uses a Windows desktop object for each desktop. Application
windows are bound to a desktop object when they are created, so Windows maintains the connection between
windows and desktops and knows which ones to show when you switch a desktop. That making Sysinternals
Desktops very lightweight and free from bugs that the other approach is prone to where their view of active
windows becomes inconsistent with the visible windows.
Desktops reliance on Windows desktop objects means that it cannot provide some of the functionality of other
virtual desktop utilities, however. For example, Windows doesn't provide a way to move a window from one
desktop object to another, and because a separate Explorer process must run on each desktop to provide a
taskbar and start menu, most tray applications are only visible on the first desktop. Further, there is no way to
delete a desktop object, so Desktops does not provide a way to close a desktop, because that would result in
orphaned windows and processes. The recommended way to exit Desktops is therefore to logoff.

Screenshot

Configuration Dialog
Tray Desktop Switch Window

Download Desktops (61 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 Hex2dec v1.1
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download Hex2dec (578 KB)

Introduction
Tired of running Calc every time you want to convert a hexadecimal number to decimal Now you can convert
hex to decimal and vice versa with this simple command-line utility.
Usage: hex2dec [hex|decimal]
Include x or 0x as the prefix of the number to specify a hexadecimal value.
e.g. To translate 1233 decimal to hexadecimal: hex2dec 1233
e.g. To translate 0x1233 hexadecimal to decimal: hex2dec 0x1233

Download Hex2dec (578 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 NotMyFault v4.20
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 14, 2019

Download NotMyFault (1 MB)

Introduction
Notmyfault is a tool that you can use to crash, hang, and cause kernel memory leaks on your Windows system.
It’s useful for learning how to identify and diagnose device driver and hardware problems, and you can also use
it to generate blue screen dump files on misbehaving systems. The download file includes 32-bit and 64-bit
versions, as well as a command-line version that works on Nano Server. Chapter 7 in Windows Internals uses
Notmyfault to demonstrate pool leak troubleshooting and Chapter 14 uses it for crash analysis examples.

Screenshots

Usage
You can use the GUI versions or the command-line version. Notmyfault requires administrative privileges.
Usage:
notmyfaultc.exe crash crash_type_num

crash type:
0x01: High IRQL fault (Kernel-mode)
0x02: Buffer overflow
0x03: Code overwrite
0x04: Stack trash
0x05: High IRQL fault (User-mode)
0x06: Stack overflow
0x07: Hardcoded breakpoint
0x08: Double Free

Or notmyfaultc.exe hang hang_type_num

hang type:
0x01: Hang with IRP
0x02: Hang with DPC

Download NotMyFault (1 MB)

 PsPasswd v1.24
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 29, 2016

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
Systems administrators that manage local administrative accounts on multiple computers regularly need to
change the account password as part of standard security practices. PsPasswd is a tool that lets you change an
account password on the local or remote systems, enabling administrators to create batch files that run
PsPasswd against the computers they manage in order to perform a mass change of the administrator
password.
PsPasswd uses Windows password reset APIs, so does not send passwords over the network in the clear.

Installation
Just copy PsPasswd onto your executable path, and type "pspasswd" with the command-line syntax shown
below..

Using PsPasswd
You can use PsPasswd to change the password of a local or domain account on the local or a remote computer.
usage: pspasswd [[\\computer[,computer[,..] | @file [-u user [-p psswd]]] Username
[NewPassword]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

computer Perform the command on the remote computer or

computers specified. If you omit the computer name the
command runs on the local system, and if you specify a
wildcard (\\*), the command runs on all computers in the
current domain.

@file Run the command on each computer listed in the text file
specified.

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p Specifies optional password for user name. If you omit this

you will be prompted to enter a hidden password.

Username Specifies name of account for password change.

NewPassword New password. If ommitted a NULL password is applied.

 Download PsTools (2.7 MB)
PsTools
PsPasswd is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and
remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 PsShutdown v2.52
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: December 4, 2006

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

Introduction
PsShutdown is a command-line utility similar to the shutdown utility from the Windows 2000 Resource Kit, but
with the ability to do much more. In addition to supporting the same options for shutting down or rebooting the
local or a remote computer, PsShutdown can logoff the console user or lock the console (locking requires
Windows 2000 or higher). PsShutdown requires no manual installation of client software.

Installation
Just copy PsShutdown onto your executable path, and type psshutdown with command-line options defined
below.

Using PsShutdown
See the February 2005 issue of Windows IT Pro Magazine for Mark's article that covers advanced usage of
PsKill.
You can use PsShutdown to initiate a shutdown of the local or a remote computer, logoff a user, lock a system, or
to abort an imminent shutdown.
Usage: psshutdown [[\\computer[,computer[,..] | @file [-u user [-p psswd]]] -s|-r|-h|-d|-k|-a|-l|-o [-
f ] [-c] [-t nn|h:m] [-n s] [-v nn] [-e [u|p]:xx:yy] [-m "message"]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

- Displays the supported options.

computer Perform the command on the remote computer or

computers specified. If you omit the computer name the
command runs on the local system, and if you specify a
wildcard (\\*), the command runs on all computers in the
current domain.

@file Run the command on each computer listed in the text file
specified.

-u Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p Specifies optional password for user name. If you omit this

you will be prompted to enter a hidden password.
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Aborts a shutdown (only possible while a countdown is in

progress).

-c Allows the shutdown to be aborted by the interactive user.

-d Suspend the computer.

-e Shutdown reason code.

Specify 'u' for user reason codes and 'p' for planned
shutdown reason codes.

xx is the major reason code (must be less than 256).

yy is the minor reason code (must be less than 65536).

-f Forces all running applications to exit during the shutdown

instead of giving them a chance to gracefully save their data.

-h Hibernate the computer.

-k Poweroff the computer (reboot if poweroff is not supported).

-l Lock the computer.

-m This option lets you specify a message to display to logged-

on users when a shutdown countdown commences.

-n Specifies timeout in seconds connecting to remote

computers.

-o Logoff the console user.

-r Reboot after shutdown.

-s Shutdown without power off.

-t Specifies the countdown in seconds until the shutdown

(default: 20 seconds) or the time of shutdown (in 24 hour
notation).

-v Display message for the specified number of seconds before

the shutdown. If you omit this parameter the shutdown
notification dialog displays and specifying a value of 0 results
in no dialog.

Download PsTools (2.7 MB)

PsTools
PsShutdown is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local
and remote systems named PsTools.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 Remote Desktop Connection Manager v2.81
6/24/2021 • 18 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Julian Burger
Published: June 24, 2021

Download Remote Desktop Connection Manager (401 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
RDCMan manages multiple remote desktop connections. It is useful for managing server labs where you need
regular access to each machine such as automated checkin systems and data centers.
Servers are organized into named groups. You can connect or disconnect to all servers in a group with a single
command. You can view all the servers in a group as a set of thumbnails, showing live action in each session.
Servers can inherit their logon settings from a parent group or a credential store. Thus when you change your
lab account password, you only need to change the password stored by RDCMan in one place. Passwords are
stored securely by encrypting with either CryptProtectData using the (locally) logged on user's authority or an
X509 certificate.
User with OS versions prior to Win7/Vista will need to get version 6 of the Terminal Services Client. You can
obtain this from the Microsoft Download Center: XP; Win2003
Upgrade note: RDG files with this version of RDCMan are not compatible with older program versions. Any
legacy RDG file opened and saved with this version will be backed up as filename.old

The Display
The Remote Desktop Connection Manager display consists of the menu, a tree with groups of servers, a splitter
bar, and a client area.
The Menu
There are several top-level menus in RDCMan:
File - load, save, and close RDCMan file groups
Edit - add, remove, and edit the properties of servers and groups.
Session - connect, disconnect and log off sessions
View - options to control the visibility of the server tree, virtual groups and size of the client area
Remote Desktops - allows access to the groups and servers in a hierarchical fashion, similar to the server
tree; primarily useful when the Server Tree is hidden
Tools - change application properties
Help - learn about RDCMan (you probably already found this)
The Tree
Most work, such as adding, removing, and editing servers and groups, can be accomplished via right-clicking on
a tree node. Servers and groups can be moved using drag-and-drop.
Keyboard shortcuts:
 Enter : Connect to selected server.
Shift+Enter : Connect to the selected server using the Connect As feature.
Delete : Remove selected server or group.
Shift+Delete : Remove selected server or group without question.
Alt+Enter : Open properties dialog for selected server or group.
Tab : If a connected server is selected, give it focus.
Use the [View.Ser ver tree location] menu option to locate the tree at the left or right edge of the window.
The server tree can be docked, auto-hidden, or always hidden via the [View.Ser ver tree visibility] menu
option. When the server tree is not displayed, servers can still be accessed through the Remote Desktops menu.
When the tree is auto-hidden, the splitter bar remains visible at the left side of the window. Hovering over it will
bring the server tree back into view.
The Client Area
The client area display depends on the node selected in the tree. If a server is selected, the client area shows the
remote desktop client for that server. If a group is selected, the client area shows a thumbnail of the servers
within that group. The size of the client area can be specified via the View menu, as well as resizing the RDCMan
window. Use [View.Lock window size] to prevent the window from being resized by dragging the frame.
Caution: Connected ser vers can receive focus from keyboard navigation of the thumbnail view. It
is not always obvious which ser ver has focus, so be careful. There is a setting to control this:
[Display Settings.Allow thumbnail session interaction].
Full Screen Mode
To work with a server in full screen mode, select the server to give it focus and press Ctrl+Alt+Break (this key
is configurable, see Shortcut Keys.) To leave full screen mode, press Ctrl+Alt+Break again or use the
minimize/restore buttons in the connection title bar. Multiple monitors can be spanned if enabled by the
monitor spanning option.
Shortcut Keys
You can find the full list of Terminal Services shortcut keys here. Some of these can be configured from the Hot
Keys tab.

Files
The top-level unit of organization in RDCMan is a remote desktop file group. File groups are collections of
groups and/or servers that are stored in a single physical file. Servers can't live outside of a group and groups
can't live outside of a file.
A file has all the characteristics of a server group other than being able to change its parent.

Groups
A group contains a list of servers and configuration information such as logon credentials. Configuration
settings can be inherited from another group or the application defaults. Groups can be nested but are
homogenous: a group may either contain groups or servers, but not both. All the servers in a group can be
connected or disconnected at once.
When a group is selected in the tree view, the servers underneath it are displayed in a thumbnail view. The
thumbnails can show the actual server windows or simply the connection status. Global thumbnail view
properties can be adjusted via the [Tools.Options.Client Area] tab while group/server-specific settings are in
Display Settings.
Smart Groups
Smart groups are populated dynamically based on a set of rules. All ancestors of sibiling groups of the smart
group are eligible for inclusion.
The Connected Virtual Group
When a server is in the connected state, it is automatically added the to Connected virtual group. Servers cannot
be explicitly added or removed from the Connected group.
The Connected group can be toggled on/off via the View menu.
The Reconnect Virtual Group
There are sometimes situations where a server disconnects and will be intentionally offline for an unspecified
length of time, e.g. when rebooting after an OS update. When this is the case, drag the server in question to the
Reconnect group. RDCMan will continually attempt to connect to the server until it is successful.
The Reconnect group can be toggled on/off via the View menu.
The Favorites Virtual Group
The Favorites virtual group is a flat file of your favorite servers. You can add any server from the server tree. This
is helpful when you have many servers in the tree and often work with a handful of servers from different
groups.
The Favorites group can be toggled on/off via the View menu.
The Connect To Virtual Group
The Connect To Virtual Group contains the servers that are not members of user-created groups. See Ad Hoc
Connections for details.
The Connect To group is visible while ad hoc connections exist and disappears when there are none.
The Recent Virtual Group
The Recent Virtual Group contains the servers that have been recently accessed.
The Recent group can be toggled on/off via the View menu.

Servers
A server has a server name (the computer's network name or IP address), an optional display name, and logon
information. The logon information may be inherited from another group.
Adding Servers Manually
Servers names following a pattern can be bulk added to a group. There are two pattern classes:
Iteration - {a,b,c} iterates over the comma-delimeted contents.
Range - [1-5] iterates the numerical range. Prefix the lower bound with 0 's to specify the minimum width.

Examples:
server1{a,b,c} : Adds server1a , server1b , server1c
server[001-15] : Adds ,
server001 server002 , ..., server015
{dca,dcb}rack[1-5]sql[1-2] : Adds dcarack1sql1 , dcarack1sql2 , dcarack2sql1 , ..., dcarack5sql2 ,
dcbrack1sql1 , ... dcbrack5sql2

Importing Servers from a Text File

Servers can be imported into a group from a text file. The file format is simply one server name per line:
 Server1
SecondServer
YANS

Server names may also be explicitly specified in the dialog.

All servers are imported into the same group with the same preferences. If a server is imported that has the
same name as an existing server, the existing server's preferences are updated to the new ones.
Ad Hoc Connections
Ad hoc server connections can be created via the [Session.Connect to] feature. These servers will be added to
the Connect To Virtual Group. From there they can be converted into real servers by moving them to a user-
created group. Servers remaining in the Connect To group are not persisted when RDCMan exits.
Windows Azure
In the [Connection Settings] tab, enter the role name and role instance name into Load balance config as
described here e.g.
Cookie: mstshash=MyServiceWebRole#MyServiceWebRole_IN_0#Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Rdp

Session Actions
While in a session, the focus can be released to another session or the server tree.
Focus release left (default value is Ctrl+Alt+Left ) : This selects the previously selected session.
Focus release right (default value is Ctrl+Alt+Right ): This brings up a dialog to choose where to focus.
There will be buttons for up to the of the most-recently used session as well as a button for the server tree
and one to minimize RDCMan.
Certain key combinations and Windows actions can be tricky to perform over the remote session--particularly
when RDCMan itself is started within a remote session--e.g. Ctrl+Alt+Del . These are available from the
[Session.Send keys] and [Session.Remote actions] menu items.

Global Options
The [Tool.Options] menu item brings up the Options Dialog. Global settings, e.g. the client area size, are
modifiable from here. Most server-related options, e.g. hot keys and those on the experience page, will not take
effect until the next time that server is connected.
General
Hide main menu until ALT pressed
The main menu can be hidden until the ALT key is pressed or the window caption area is left clicked.
Auto save interval
You can have RDCMan periodically save the open files automatically. Check the auto-save check box and specify
the interval (in minutes) for saving. An interval of 0 will not save periodically but will suppress the save prompt
when exiting RDCMan.
Prompt to reconnect connected servers on startup
RDCMan remembers which servers where connected when the program was exited. On the next run you are
prompted to choose which servers to reconnect. Disabling this option automatically reconnects all previously
connected servers. See Command Line for command line switches that affect this behavior.
Default group settings
Clicking this button opens a dialog to configure the settings for the base level of the inheritance hierarchy. E.g. if
a File group is set to inherit from its parent, this is where the settings come from.
Tree
Click to select gives focus to remote client
When selecting a node in the server tree control with a mouse click, the default behavior is to keep focus on the
tree control. There is an option to change this to focus on the selected server.
Dim nodes when the tree control is inactive
RDCMan can dim the tree control when it is inactive. This presents a more obvious visual distinction of keyboard
focus.
Client Area
Client Area Size
This option resizes the client area of the RDCMan window. The options are also available from the [View.Client
size] menu.
Thumbnail Unit Size
The thumbnail unit size can be specified as an absolute pixel size or a relative percentage of the client panel
width.
Hot Keys
Many of the remote desktop hot keys are configurable. There is a limited mapping, however. For example if the
default key is ALT-something, the replacement must also be ALT-something. To change a hot key, navigate to the
text box for the hot key and press the new "something" key.
Experience
Depending on the bandwidth available from your machine, you will want to limit Windows UI features to
improve performance. The connection speed drop down can be used to set all options together, or they can be
individually customized. The features are: desktop backgrounds, showing full window contents when dragging,
menu and window animation, and windows themes.
Full Screen
Show full screen connection bar
Auto-hide connection bar
When a server is displayed in full-screen mode, the remote desktop activeX control provides a UI connection bar
at the top of the window. This bar can be toggled on and off. When it is on, you can choose to have it pinned or
auto-hidden.
Full screen window is always on top
When RDCMan is displaying a server in full-screen mode, you can choose to have the window always displayed
as the top-most window.
Use multiple monitors when necessary
By default, a full screen session is restricted to the monitor containing the server window. You can enable
multiple monitor spanning in the full screen options. If the remote desktop is larger than window's monitor, it
will span as many monitors as needed to fit the remote session. Note that only rectangular areas are used, so if
you have two monitors with differing vertical resolutions, the shorter of the two is used. Also, there is a hard
limit of 4096x2048 for the remote desktop control.

Local Options
Groups and Servers have a number of tabbed property pages with various customization options. Many of
these pages are common to groups and servers. When the "Inherit from parent" check box is checked, the
settings that follow are inherited from the parent container. Most server-related changes, e.g. remote desktop
size, will not take effect until the next time that server is connected.
File Settings
This page only appears for the properties of a file. It contains options for the file's group name, shows the full
path to the file (which can't be edited), and has a comment field.
Group Settings
This page only appears for the properties of a group. It contains options for the group name, parent nesting, and
a comment.
Server Settings
This page only appears for the properties of a server. It contains options for the server name, its display name,
parent nesting, and a comment. SCVMM virtual machines can be connected to via RDP into the host using the
VM console connect option. Use the PowerShell command:

get-vm | ft ElementName,Name,Id

to determine the id corresponding to the VM.

Logon Credentials
The Logon Credentials property page contains options pertaining to remote login. The user name, password,
and domain are set on this page. The domain and user name can be specified together by using the
domain\user format. When logging in to a machine "domain" rather than a Windows domain, you can specify
[server] or [display]. This former will be substituted with the server name, the latter with the display name, at
logon time. It is useful when you have a group of machines which require logging in as administrator. The Logon
Settings entered in the properties pages are used by default for new connections. If you want to temporarily
customize these settings for a new connection, connect using the Connect As menu item.
Gateway Settings
The Gateway Settings property page has options for using a TS Gateway Server. The Gateway name,
authentication method, and local address bypass options are on this page. Users of operating systems starting
from Vista SP1 and Longhorn server will have additional options regarding logon credentials:
Explicit entry of Gateway user name and password Ability to share the Gateway credentials with the remote
server
Connection Settings
The Connection Settings tab includes settings to customize how a session is connected and what happens upon
logon.
You can specify whether the console session should be connected to as well as the remote desktop connection
port.
There are also settings that allow you to run a program upon connection. Enter the program name and,
optionally, the working directory for that program. Note that these only have an effect if you are connecting to
the console session for the first time. That is, reconnecting to a session or connecting to a session other than the
console session will not run the program. (At least, this is how Terminal Services appears to work based on
empirical observation.)
Remote Desktop Settings
The size of the remote desktop is specified on this page. This is the logical desktop size, not the physical client
view of it. For example, if the remote desktop size is 1280 x 1024 and client size is 1024 x 768, you would see a
1024 x 768 view of the remote desktop with scroll bars. If the client size were 1600 x 1200, the entire remote
desktop would be visible, offset by a gray border.
Specifying "Same as client area" will make the remote desktop the same size as the RDCMan client panel, i.e. the
RDCMan window client area excluding the server tree. Specifying "Full screen" will make the remote desktop the
same size as the screen that the server is viewed on. Note that the remote desktop size is determined upon
connecting to a server. Changing this setting for a connected server will have no effect.
The maximum size of the remote desktop is determined by the version of the remote desktop activeX control.
Version 5 (pre-Vista) had a maximum of 1600 x 1200; Version 6 (Vista) has a maximum of 4096 x 2048. This
limit is enforced at connection time, not during data entry. This is in case the same RDCMan file is shared by
multiple computers.
Local Resources
Various resources of the remote server may be delivered to the client. The remote computer sound can be
played locally, played remotely, or disabled entirely. Windows key combinations (for example, those involving
the actual Windows key as well as other specials like Alt+Tab) can be applied always to the client machine,
always to the remote machine, or to the client when windowed and the remote machine when in full screen
mode. Client drive, port, printer, smart card, and clipboard resources can be automatically shared to the remote
machine.
Security Settings
You can specify whether authentication of the remote machine is required before a connection is established.
Display Settings
Thumbnail display settings are customizable from this page.
The first option is: thumbnail scale. This specifies how many thumbnail units to allocate to the display of a given
server. All servers default to a scale of 1. You can change this to increase the display of important servers. For
example, a server could be scaled by 3 or 5 making the remote session quite usable in the thumbnail display
while still permitting a view of many other servers. This is the only option for servers.
There are three additional options for groups: preview session in thumbnail, allow thumbnail session interaction,
and show disconnected thumbnails. The first whether or not the thumbnail view shows the actual live
connection, continually updated. The second, dependent on the first, specifies whether the thumbnail session is
usable. The final option controls whether disconnected servers appear in the thumbnail view.
Encryption Settings
RDCMan can encrypt the passwords stored in files either with the local user's credentials via CryptProtectData
or an X509 certificate. The Encryption Settings tab is available in the Default Group Settings and File Settings
dialogs.
Personal certificates of the current user which have a private key are available for encryption. You can create
such a certificate in the following manner:

makecert -sky exchange -r -pe -a sha1 -len 2048 -ss my -n "CN=MyRDCManCert"

This will create a certificate called " MyRDCManCert " in the Personal Certificates store of the current user. To install
this cert on another computer, you must export it with the private key.
Profile Management
Credential profiles can be added, edited, and removed from this tab.

List Remote Sessions

RDCMan has limited support for managing remote sessions other than those connected from it. The
[Session.List Sessions] menu item invokes the feature.
Note that the account running RDCMan must have Query Information permissions on the remote server to list
the sessions. Furthermore, the remote session must be directly reachable rather than via a gateway server.
Disconnect and Logoff permissions must be granted to perform those operations. See msdn for more
information on remote desktop permissions.
Command Line
By default, RDCMan will open the files that were loaded at the time of the last program shutdown. You can
override this by specifying a file (or files) explicitly on the RDCMan command line. Additionally, the following
switches are accepted:
/reset - reset the persisted application preferences such as window location and size.
/noopen - do not open the previously loaded files, starting with an empty environment.
/c server1[,server2...] - connect specified servers
/reconnect - connect all servers that were connected at shutdown without prompting
/noconnect - do not prompt to connect servers that were connected at shutdown

Find Servers
There is a dialog for finding servers accessed via Ctrl+F or the Edit.Find (servers) command. All servers
matching a regular expression pattern are displayed in the dialog and can be acted on via a context menu. The
pattern is matched against the full name ( group\server ).

Credential Profiles
Credential profiles store logon credentials globally to RDCMan or in a file. This allows for using the same stored
credentials across groups that do not have a common ancestor. One use scenario is to store credentials used for
logging into servers and gateways in a single place. When a password changes, it can be edited once. Another
scenario is when sharing RDG files across a group. Instead of storing passwords in the file (which would have
issues due to the user-specific nature of the encryption RDCMan uses), a profile is created such as "Me" which
each user defines in their Global store.
You can update the settings for a credential profile in two ways. The first is to edit from a credentials dialog and
then save the exact same profile name/domain to the same store (file or global). That will ask if you want to
update. The other way is to go to the group properties for the credential store (again, file or global) and use the
Profile Management tab.
File scope credential profile passwords are encrypted according to the containing file's Encryption Settings.
Global credential profiles use the Default Group Settings.

Policies
RDCMan retrieves policy information from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\RDCMan registry
key.
DisableLogOff - Create this DWORD value as non-zero to disable the log off command throughout RDCMan.

FAQ
How do I use smartcard credentials to logon?
Enable "Redirect smart cards" in the Local Resources tab.
I get an error connecting through a gateway such as Error 50331656. Why?
Gateways must be specified as FQDN.
How do I make auto-logon work?
You must enable the Group Policy controlling it. Use the MMC "Group Policy" Snap-in and navigate to
 "Local Computer Policy/Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows
Components/Terminal Services/Encryption and Security". Double-click "Always prompt client for
password upon connection" and click the "Disabled" box.
How do I resize the remote desktop while a server is connected?
You can't. To resize you must disconnect and reconnect (use the Reconnect feature to do this in one step).

Download
Download Remote Desktop Connection Manager (401 KB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 RegDelNull v1.11
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download RegDelNull (511 KB)

Introduction
This command-line utility searches for and allows you to delete Registry keys that contain embedded-null
characters and that are otherwise undeleteable using standard Registry-editing tools. Note: deleting Registry
keys may cause the applications they are associated with to fail.

Using RegDelNull
Usage: regdelnull <path> [-s]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-s Recurse into subkeys.

Here's an example of RegDelNull when used on a system on which the RegHide sample program has created a
null-embedded key:

C:\>regdelnull hklm -sRegDelNull v1.10 - Delete Registry keys with embedded Nulls

Copyright (C) 2005-2006 Mark Russinovich

Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
Null-embedded key (Nulls are replaced by '*'):
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Systems Internals\Can't touch me!*
Delete (y/n) y
Scan complete.

Download RegDelNull (511 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista (32-bit) and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 (32-bit) and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Registry Usage (RU) v1.2
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: July 4, 2016

Download RU (507 KB)

Introduction
Ru (registry usage) reports the registry space usage for the registry key you specify. By default it recurses
subkeys to show the total size of a key and its subkeys.

Using Registry Usage (RU)

usage: ru [-c[t]] [-l <levels> | -n | -v] [-q] <absolute path>
usage: ru [-c[t]] [-l <levels> | -n | -v] [-q] -h <hive file> [relative path]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-c Print output as CSV. Specify -ct for tab delimiting.

-h Load the specified hive file, perform the size calculation, then
unload it and compress it.

-l Specify subkey depth of information (default is one level).

-n Do not recurse.

-q Quiet (no banner).

-v Show size of all subkeys.

CSV output is formatted as:

Path,CurrentValueCount,CurrentValueSize,ValueCount,KeyCount,KeySize,WriteTime

Download RU (507 KB)

 Reghide
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

Published: November 1, 2006

Download RegHide (38 KB) Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
A subtle but significant difference between the Win32 API and the Native API (see Inside the Native API for more
information on this largely undocumented interface) is the way that names are described. In the Win32 API
strings are interpreted as NULL-terminated ANSI (8-bit) or wide character (16-bit) strings. In the Native API
names are counted Unicode (16-bit) strings. While this distinction is usually not important, it leaves open an
interesting situation: there is a class of names that can be referenced using the Native API, but that cannot be
described using the Win32 API.

Download RegHide (38 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.
Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher.
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher.
 RegJump v1.1
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: April 20, 2015

Download RegJump (53 KB)

Introduction
This little command-line applet takes a registry path and makes Regedit open to that path. It accepts root keys in
standard (e.g. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) and abbreviated form (e.g. HKLM).
usage: regjump <<path>|-c>

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-c Copy path from clipboard.

e.g.: regjump HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows

Download RegJump (53 KB)

 Strings v2.54
6/22/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: June 22, 2021

Download Strings (534 KB)

Introduction
Working on NT and Win2K means that executables and object files will many times have embedded UNICODE
strings that you cannot easily see with a standard ASCII strings or grep programs. So we decided to roll our
own. Strings just scans the file you pass it for UNICODE (or ASCII) strings of a default length of 3 or more
UNICODE (or ASCII) characters. Note that it works under Windows 95 as well.

Using Strings
Usage:

strings [-a] [-f offset] [-b bytes] [-n length] [-o] [-q] [-s] [-u] <file or directory>

Strings takes wild-card expressions for file names, and additional command line parameters are defined as
follows:

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Ascii-only search (Unicode and Ascii is default)

-b Bytes of file to scan

-f File offset at which to start scanning.

-o Print offset in file string was located

-n Minimum string length (default is 3)

-s Recurse subdirectories

-u Unicode-only search (Unicode and Ascii is default)

-nobanner Do not display the startup banner and copyright message.

To search one or more files for the presence of a particular string using strings use a command like this:

strings * | findstr /i TextToSearchFor

Download Strings (534 KB)

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2008 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher
 Testlimit v5.24
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: November 17, 2016

Download Testlimit (234 KB)

Introduction
Testlimit is a command-line utility that can be used to stress-test your PC and/or applications by simulating low
resource conditions for memory, handles, processes, threads and other system objects.
usage: Testlimit [[-h [-u]] | [-p [-n]] | [-t [-n [KB]]] | [-u [-i]] | [-g [object size]] | [-a|-d|-l|-m|-r|-s|-v
[MB]] | [-w]] [-c [count]] [-e [seconds]]

PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-a Leak Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory in

specified MBs (default is 1)

-c Count of number of objects to allocate (default is as many as

possible). This must be the last option specified

-d Leak and touch memory in specified MBs (default is 1)

-e Seconds elapsed between allocations (default is 0)

-g Create GDI handles of specified size (default 1 byte). Specify

a size of 0 to cause GDI object exhaustion

-h Create handles. Specify -u to also allocate file objects

-i Exhaust USER desktop heap

-l Allocate the specified amount of large pages (rounded to

large size multiple)

-m Leak memory in specified MBs (default is 1)

-p Create processes - add -n to set min working set. Add -n to

set min working set of processes to smallest

-r Reserve memory in specified MBs (default is 1)

-s Leak shared memory in specified MBs (default is 1)

-t Create threads - add -n to specify minimum stack reserve (in

KB)
 PA RA M ET ER DESC RIP T IO N

-u Create USER handles to menus

-v VirtualLock memory in specified MBs (default is 1)

-w Reset working set minimum to highest possible value

Runs on:
Client: Windows Vista and higher
Server: Windows Server 2003 and higher
Nano Server: 2016 and higher

Related Links
Windows Internals Book The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows
internals, by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon.
Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark
Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of all the tools, their features, how to use them for
troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Download
Download Testlimit (234 KB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 ZoomIt v4.52
5/25/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Published: December 11, 2019

Download ZoomIt (917 KB)

Run now from Sysinternals Live.

Introduction
ZoomIt is a screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application
demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on
an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my
specific needs and use it in all my presentations.
ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.

Using ZoomIt
The first time you run ZoomIt it presents a configuration dialog that describes ZoomIt's behavior, let's you
specify alternate hotkeys for zooming and for entering drawing mode without zooming, and customize the
drawing pen color and size. I use the draw-without-zoom option to annotate the screen at its native resolution,
for example. ZoomIt also includes a break timer feature that remains active even when you tab away from the
timer window and allows you to return to the timer window by clicking on the ZoomIt tray icon.
Shortcuts
ZoomIt offers a number of shortcuts which can extend its usage greatly.

F UN C T IO N SH O RTC UT

Zoom Mode Ctrl + 1

Zoom In Mouse Scroll Up or Up Arrow

Zoom Out Mouse Scroll Down or Down Arrow

Start Drawing (While In Zoom Mode) Left-Click

Stop Drawing (While In Zoom Mode) Right-Click

Start Drawing (While Not In Zoom Mode) Ctrl + 2

Increase/Decrease Line And Cursor Size (Drawing Mode) Ctrl + Mouse Scroll Up/Down or Arrow Keys

Center The Cursor (Drawing Mode) Space Bar

Whiteboard (Drawing Mode) W

F UN C T IO N SH O RTC UT

Blackboard (Drawing Mode) K

Type in Text T

Increase/Decrease Font Size (Typing Mode) Ctrl + Mouse Scroll Up/Down or Arrow Keys

Red Pen R

Green Pen G

Blue Pen B

Yellow Pen Y

Orange Pen O

Pink Pen P

Draw a Straight Line Hold Shift

Draw a Rectangle Hold Ctrl

Draw an Ellipse Hold Tab

Draw an Arrow Hold Ctrl + Shift

Erase Last Drawing Ctrl + Z

Erase All Drawings E

Copy Screenshot to Clipboard Ctrl + C

Save Screenshot as PNG Ctrl + S

Show Countdown Timer Ctrl + 3

Increase/Decrease Time Ctrl + Mouse Scroll Up/Down or Arrow Keys

Minimize Timer (Without Pausing It) Alt + Tab

Show Timer When Minimized Left-Click On The ZoomIt Icon

Live Zoom Mode Ctrl + 4

Exit Esc or Right-Click

 Download ZoomIt (917 KB)
Run now from Sysinternals Live.
 Sysinternals Suite
6/22/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

By Mark Russinovich
Updated: June 1, 2021
Download Sysinternals Suite (41.4 MB)
Download Sysinternals Suite for Nano Ser ver (8.4 MB)
Download Sysinternals Suite for ARM64 (10.5 MB)

Introduction
The Sysinternals Troubleshooting Utilities have been rolled up into a single Suite of tools. This file contains the
individual troubleshooting tools and help files. It does not contain non-troubleshooting tools like the BSOD
Screen Saver.
The Suite is a bundling of the following selected Sysinternals Utilities: AccessChk, AccessEnum, AdExplorer,
AdInsight, AdRestore, Autologon, Autoruns, BgInfo, BlueScreen, CacheSet, ClockRes, Contig, Coreinfo, Ctrl2Cap,
DebugView, Desktops, Disk2vhd, DiskExt, DiskMon, DiskView, Disk Usage (DU), EFSDump, FindLinks, Handle,
Hex2dec, Junction, LDMDump, ListDLLs, LiveKd, LoadOrder, LogonSessions, MoveFile, NotMyFault, NTFSInfo,
PageDefrag, PendMoves, PipeList, PortMon, ProcDump, Process Explorer, Process Monitor, PsExec, PsFile,
PsGetSid, PsInfo, PsKill, PsList, PsLoggedOn, PsLogList, PsPasswd, PsPing, PsService, PsShutdown, PsSuspend,
PsTools, RAMMap, RDCMan, RegDelNull, RegHide, RegJump, Registry Usage (RU), SDelete, ShareEnum,
ShellRunas, Sigcheck, Streams, Strings, Sync, Sysmon, TCPView, VMMap, VolumeID, WhoIs, WinObj, ZoomIt
 Sysinternals Community
3/5/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

Follow on Twitter
Follow @Sysinternals
Follow @MarkRussinovich

Search and Post Questions on Microsoft Q&A

Windows Sysinternals on Q&A allows you to search a growing archive of technical questions and answers.
 Sysinternals Resources
3/5/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

Books
Windows Internals Book
The official updates and errata page for the definitive book on Windows internals, by Mark Russinovich and
David Solomon.
Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals Tools
The official guide to the Sysinternals utilities by Mark Russinovich and Aaron Margosis, including descriptions of
all the tools, their features, how to use them for troubleshooting, and example real-world cases of their use.

Articles
Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 1
Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 2
Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 3
Inside Windows Vista User Account Control
Inside Windows Server 2008 Kernel Changes

Videos and Webcasts

Defrag Tools Shows
Episodes 1 – 12 of the Defrag Tools shows focus on Sysinternals tools. Each episode covers a specific tool used
on the tech support show Defrag, covering when and why to use the tools, and providing tips on how to get the
most out of them:
Defrag Tools: #1 - Building your USB thumbdrive
Defrag Tools: #2 - Process Explorer
Defrag Tools: #3 - Process Monitor
Defrag Tools: #4 - Process Monitor - Examples
Defrag Tools: #5 - Autoruns and MSConfig
Defrag Tools: #6 - RAMMap
Defrag Tools: #7 - VMMap
Defrag Tools: #8 - Mark Russinovich
Defrag Tools: #9 - ProcDump
Defrag Tools: #10 - ProcDump - Triggers
Defrag Tools: #11 - ProcDump - Windows 8 & Process Monitor
Defrag Tools: #12 - TaskMgr and ResMon
Mark's Webcasts
Two dozen of Mark’s top-rated presentations on Sysinternals, Windows internals, and Windows Azure are
available for on-demand viewing. Get tips and techniques on using the Sysinternals tools to troubleshoot
directly from their author.
TWC: Sysinternals Primer: TechEd 2014 Edition
The latest edition of the popular Sysinternals Primer series with Aaron Margosis, Mark Russinovich’s co-author
of The Windows Sysinternals Administrator’s Reference. The Sysinternals utilities are vital tools for any
computer professional on the Windows platform. Mark Russinovich's popular “Case Of The Unexplained”
demonstrates some of their capabilities in advanced troubleshooting scenarios. This complementary tutorial
series focuses primarily on the utilities themselves, deep-diving into as many features as time allows. Expect to
see some advanced analysis, such as manipulating Procmon results with Windows PowerShell, and
interesting/useful new features.
Sysinternals Primer: Autoruns, Disk2Vhd, ProcDump, BgInfo and AccessChk
The Sysinternals utilities are vital tools for any computer professional on the Windows platform. Mark
Russinovich's popular "Case Of The Unexplained" demonstrates some of their capabilities in advanced
troubleshooting scenarios. This complementary tutorial session focuses primarily on the utilities themselves,
giving you tips and techniques for using their full functionality for troubleshooting and systems management.
This session follows the same format as last year’s highly-rated delivery, and covers a different set of the most
useful Sysinternals tools.
Unintended Consequences of Security Lockdowns (uses Sysinternals utilities a lot)
Security-conscious organizations often lock down their systems based on prescriptive guidance from Microsoft,
US Federal government agencies or other security organizations. Sometimes these settings can lead to
unpleasant surprises and unexpected side effects. This session describes and demonstrates some of the
common issues that can arise, and whether and how those settings actually help or hurt. Is there benefit to not
granting Administrators the “Debug” privilege? Does “Hide mechanisms to remove zone information” break
anything? Is the “Require trusted path for credential entry” setting worth the inconvenience? Come see!
Windows Sysinternals Primer: Process Explorer, Process Monitor and More
The Sysinternals utilities are vital tools for any computer professional on the Windows platform. Mark
Russinovich's popular "Case Of The Unexplained" demonstrates some of their capabilities in advanced
troubleshooting scenarios. This complementary tutorial session by Aaron Margosis and Tim Reckmeyer focuses
primarily on the utilities, deep-diving into as many features as time will allow. Learn tips and tricks that will
make you more effective with the Sysinternals utilities.
 Mark's Webcasts
3/24/2021 • 8 minutes to read • Edit Online

Watch free on-demand recordings of Mark’s top-rated presentations from TechEd, BUILD and other conferences
on Azure, security, Windows troubleshooting, malware hunting. If you have a question about a topic in any of
these webcasts, please visit the Sysinternals Forum for answers and help from other users and our moderators.

Case of the Unexplained

The Case of the Unexplained 2015
The Case of the Unexplained 2014
The Case of the Unexplained 2013
The Case of the Unexplained 2012
The Case of the Unexplained 2011
The Case of the Unexplained 2010
Mark’s “The Case of…” blog posts come alive in these recorded webcasts of his #1-rated TechEd sessions.
Learn how to troubleshoot the toughest Windows and application problems by watching Mark use
Sysinternals and other advanced tools to solve real-world examples. Be sure to check out all webcasts since
they include totally different troubleshooting examples and demonstrate different techniques.

Microsoft Azure
The Next Generation of Azure Compute Platform Learn about ways to integrate with Azure Resource
Manager (ARM) to enable role-based access control (RBAC), tagging,and template-based deployments,and
how Windows containers with Docker compatibility make your code deploy instantly and work consistently
in any environment. Also learn how Service Fabric, Microsoft’s hyper-scale micro-service PaaS that powers
everything from Azure DB to Cortana, brings applications state-of-the art high-density, high availability and
stateful computing capabilities.
Mark Russinovich and Mark Minasi on Cloud Computing Join Mark Russinovich and Mark Minasi for a lively
discussion as they share their views on the cloud computing disruption and what it means for IT pros and
developers. Mark Russinovich brings his perspective from leading Microsoft Azure architecture and Mark
Minasi brings his IT expertise and view from outside.
Public Cloud Security: Surviving in a Hostile Multi-Tenant Environment The rise of public cloud computing
has brought with it a new set of security considerations that are not widely understood. With a unique
perspective from working on the security systems of a public cloud, Mark describes public cloud service
provider and cloud customer threats, including malicious insiders, shared technology, data breaches, and
data loss. For each, he assesses the risks and explores the value of mitigations like encryption-at-rest,
encryption-in-flight, and other security best practices, separating hype from reality so that you can make
educated decisions as your organization moves to the cloud.
Mark Russinovich and Mark Minasi on Cloud Computing Join Mark Russinovich and Mark Minasi for a lively
discussion as they share their views on the cloud computing disruption and what it means for IT pros and
developers. Mark Russinovich brings his perspective from leading Microsoft Azure architecture and Mark
Minasi brings his IT expertise and view from outside. The economics of public cloud, future of PaaS and IaaS,
how enterprises will bridge their on-premises environments with the cloud, how you should look at security
in the public cloud, and what skills are important for IT pros and developers are just some of the areas they
explore together.
Infrastructure Services on Microsoft Azure: Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks This session gives an
overview of the new Windows Azure infrastructure services (IaaS), including support for Windows Server
 and Linux persistent virtual machines, new networking capabilities for hybrid applications and on-
premises/cloud connectivity, and support for applications that consist of PaaS and IaaS roles. Mark explains
how IaaS fits into Windows Azure to extend existing server applications to cloud and shows demonstrations
of IaaS VM deployment and complex multi-VM applications.
Microsoft Azure Internals Mark Russinovich goes under the hood of the Microsoft datacenter operating
system. Intended for developers who have already gotten their hands dirty with Windows Azure and
understand its basic concepts, this session gives an inside look at the architectural design of the Windows
Azure compute platform. Learn about Microsoft’s datacenter architecture, what goes on behind the scenes
when you deploy and update a Windows Azure app and how it monitors and responds to the health of
machines, its own components, and the apps it hosts.
Introduction to Microsoft Azure: The Cloud Operating System Join Mark Russinovich for an overview of
Microsoft’s new cloud OS. Assuming no prior knowledge of Windows Azure, this session will start by
explaining the Windows Azure Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) app philosophy and how it differs from that of
traditional server apps. Then, demonstrating key concepts with a real Windows Azure service built and
deployed to the cloud, we’ll describe the Windows Azure service model, including concepts like update and
fault domains. The session will then conclude by discussing the different service update options and detail
the recovery steps Windows Azure follows when it detects that a service or a hardware device has failed.
Inside Microsoft Azure: The Cloud Operating System Mark Russinovich goes under the hood of Microsoft’s
new cloud OS. Intended for developers who have already gotten their hands dirty with Windows Azure and
understand its basic concepts, this session gives an inside look at the architectural design of Windows
Azure’s compute platform. You’ll learn about Microsoft’s datacenter architecture, what goes on behind the
scenes when you deploy and update a Windows Azure app and how it monitors and responds to the health
of machines, its own components and the apps it hosts.
Channel9: MarkRussinovich: Microsoft Azure, Cloud Operating Systems and Platformas a Service Mark talks
about what he’s working on in the Windows Azure team, why the world is moving to the cloud, and what
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) means and how Windows Azure delivers PaaS.

Windows Internals
Tech-Ed North America 2011: Mysteries of Windows Memory Management Revealed, Part1 Tech-Ed North
America 2011: Mysteries of Windows Memory Management Revealed, Part2 If you want to know the
difference between System Committed memory and Process Committed memory, wondered what all those
memory numbers shown by Task Manager really mean, or want to gain insight into the memory-related
impact of a process, then this talk is for you. Watch Mark in this on-demand webcast from North America
2011.
Pushing the Limits of Windows Watch as Mark explains Windows limits related to object handles, virtual
memory and physical memory. Along the way he explains where the limits come from and how to monitor
your applications so that you're warned when they approach the limits and so that you can size your systems
to accommodate their resource requirements.
Inside Windows Server 2008R2 Virtualization and VHD Improvements Mark takes you inside new Windows
virtualization and VHD features, including live VM migration, core parking and timer coalescing, hypervisor
power management support,and new hardware-assisted guest memory management. He delivers the entire
presentation from a Windows installation that was booted from VHD to show you how Windows implements
a native VHD stack and how the boot architecture has changed to accommodate booting from VHD images.
Channel9: Mark Russinovich goes Inside Windows 7 Mark talks about kernel changes in Windows 7 and
Windows Server 2008R2, including the removal of the scheduler's dispatcher lock, support for up to 256
CPUs, boot from VHD, MinWin, core parking for power savings and more.
Channel9: Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7 Redux In a follow-on to the previous Inside Windows 7
discussion, Mark digs into the insides of Windows 7, way deep down in the system (the cumulative effects of
which help to make Windows 7 Microsoft's most reliable, scalable and efficient general purpose operating
system to date).
 Channel9: Mark talks about working at Microsoft, Windows Server 2008's kernel, MinWin vs ServerCore and
Hyper-V Channel 9 chats with Technical Fellow and Sysinternals founder Mark Russinovich to dig a bit into
what's new in the Windows Server 2008 kernel. Of course, we talk about many things including HyperV,
application virtualization, kernel architecture, and more....

Security
TWC: Pass-the-Hash: How Attackers Spread and How to Stop Them Pass-the-hash transforms the breach of
one machine into total compromise of infrastructure. The publication of attacks, and lack of tools to respond,
have forced enterprises to rely on onerous and ineffective techniques. In this session, we deconstruct the PtH
threat, show how the attack is performed, and how it can be addressed using new features and functionality
recently introduced in Windows.
TWC: Malware Hunting with Mark Russinovich and the Sysinternals Tools Mark provides an overview of
several Sysinternals tools, including Process Monitor, Process Explorer, and Autoruns, focusing on the
features useful for malware analysis and removal. These utilities enable deep inspection and control of
processes, file system and registry activity, and autostart execution points. He demonstrates their malware-
hunting capabilities by presenting several current, real-world malware samples and using the tools to
identify and clean malware.
License to Kill: Malware Hunting with the Sysinternals tools This session provides an overview of several
Sysinternals tools, including Process Monitor, Process Explorer, and Autoruns, focusing on the features useful
for malware analysis and removal. These utilities enable deep inspection and control of processes, file system
and registry activity, and autostart execution points. You will see demos for their malware-hunting
capabilities through several real-world cases that used the tools to identify and clean malware,and conclude
by performing a live analysis of a Stuxnet infection’s system impact.
Zero Day: A Non-Fiction View Mark makes the case for how his hit cyberthriller, ZeroDay, is likely to be
realized in non-fiction form in this 20-minute short version of his well-popular RSA Conference session.
Zero Day Malware Cleaning with the Sysinternals tools Slides from Mark’s highly-rated Blackhat US 2011
presentation how to use the Sysinternals tools to hunt down and eliminate malware.
Channel9: Mark Talks about Windows Security and Core Architecture Check out Mark’s Channel 9 interview
where he talks about how he got started with Windows internals, new security features in Windows Vista,
User Account Control,and what he’s doing at Microsoft.

Defrag Tools
Defrag Tools Shows Episodes 1 – 12 of the Defrag Tools shows focus on Sysinternals tools. Each episode
covers a specific tool used on the tech support show Defrag, covering when and why to use the tools, and
providing tips on how to get the most out of them:
Defrag Tools: #1- Building your USB thumbdrive
Defrag Tools: #2- Process Explorer
Defrag Tools: #3- Process Monitor
Defrag Tools: #4- Process Monitor- Examples
Defrag Tools: #5- Autoruns and MSConfig
Defrag Tools: #6- RAMMap
Defrag Tools: #7- VMMap
Defrag Tools: #8- Mark Russinovich
Defrag Tools: #9- ProcDump
Defrag Tools: #10- ProcDump- Triggers
Defrag Tools: #11- ProcDump- Windows 8 & Process Monitor
Defrag Tools: #12- TaskMgr and ResMon
 Windows Internals Book
3/24/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

Windows Internals 7th edition (Par t 1) covers the architecture and core internals of Windows 10 and
Windows Server 2016. This book helps you:
Understand the Windows system architecture and its general components
Explore internal data structures using tools like the kernel debugger
Understand how Windows uses processes for management and isolation
Understand and view thread scheduling and how CPU resources are managed
Dig into the Windows security model including recent advances in security mitigations
Understand how Windows manages virtual and physical memory
Understand how the I/O system manages physical devices and device drivers
The 7th edition was written by Pavel Yosifovich, Alex Ionescu, Mark Russinovich and David Solomon. New
material has been added since the 6th edition (which covered Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2). Since
the 7th edition’s part 2 is not yet available, the Windows Internals 6th edition (written by Mark Russinovich,
David Solomon and Alex Ionescu) is an invaluable resource on missing topics from the first part of the 7th
edition. These include system mechanisms, management mechanisms, networking, file systems, cache
management and troubleshooting system crashes.

Table of contents of the 7th edition, part 1:

Chapter 1: Concepts and Tools
Chapter 2: System Architecture
Chapter 3: Processes and Jobs
Chapter 4: Threads
Chapter 5: Memory Management
Chapter 6: I/O System
Chapter 7: Security
The book is available for purchase on the Microsoft Press site (7th edition Part 1; 6th Edition Part 1; 6th Edition
Part 2).

History of the Book

This is the seventh edition of a book that was originally called Inside Windows NT (Microsoft Press, 1992),
written by Helen Custer (prior to the initial release of Microsoft Windows NT 3.1). Inside Windows NT was the
first book ever published about Windows NT and provided key insights into the architecture and design of the
system. Inside Windows NT, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 1998) was written by David Solomon. It updated
the original book to cover Windows NT 4.0 and had a greatly increased level of technical depth. Inside Windows
2000, Third Edition (Microsoft Press, 2000) was authored by David Solomon and Mark Russinovich. It added
many new topics, such as startup and shutdown, service internals, registry internals, file-system drivers, and
networking. It also covered kernel changes in Windows 2000, such as the Windows Driver Model (WDM), Plug
and Play, power management, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), encryption, the job object, and
Terminal Services. Windows Internals, Fourth Edition was the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 update
and added more content focused on helping IT professionals make use of their knowledge of Windows
internals, such as using key tools from Windows Sysinternals and analyzing crash dumps.
Windows Internals, Fifth Edition was the update for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. It saw Mark
Russinovich move on to a full-time job at Microsoft (where he is now the Azure CTO) and the addition of a new
co-author, Alex Ionescu. New content included the image loader, user-mode debugging facility, Advanced Local
Procedure Call (ALPC), and Hyper-V. The next release, Windows Internals, Sixth Edition, was fully updated to
address the many kernel changes in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, with many new hands-on
experiments to reflect changes in the tools as well.

Seventh Edition Changes

Since this series’ last update, Windows has gone through several releases, coming up to Windows 10 and
Windows Server 2016. Windows 10 itself, being the current going-forward name for Windows, has had several
releases since its initial Release-to-Manufacturing, or RTM, each labeled with a 4-digit version number indicating
year and month of release, such as Windows 10, version 1703 that was completed in March 2017. The above
implies that Windows has gone through at least 6 versions since Windows 7. Starting with Windows 8,
Microsoft began a process of OS convergence, which is beneficial from a development perspective as well as for
the Windows engineering team itself. Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 had converged kernels, with modern
app convergence arriving in Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. The convergence story was complete with
Windows 10, which runs on desktops/laptops, servers, XBOX One, phones (Windows Mobile 10), HoloLens, and
various Internet of Things (IoT) devices. With this grand unification completed, the time was right for a new
edition of the series, which could now finally catch up with almost half a decade of changes, in what will now be
a more stabilized kernel architecture going forward. As such, this latest book covers aspects of Windows from
Windows 8 to Windows 10, version 1703. Additionally, this edition welcomes Pavel Yosifovich as its new co-
author.

Book tools
Several tools have been specifically written for the book, and they are available with full source code at
https://github.com/zodiacon/WindowsInternals.
 Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals
Tools
3/24/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

An update to Windows Sysinternals Administrator’s Reference

By Mark Russinovich and Aaron Margosis
Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals Tools is the official book on the Sysinternals tools, written by
tool author and Sysinternals cofounder Mark Russinovich, and Windows expert Aaron Margosis. The book
covers all 65+ tools in detail, with full chapters on the major tools like Process Explorer, Process Monitor, and
Autoruns. In addition to tips and tricks in the tool chapters, it includes 45 "Case of the Unexplained…" examples
of the tools used by users to solve real-world problems. Buy the book today and take your Windows
troubleshooting and systems management skills to the next level.

Ordering the Book

You can purchase the book from these online retailers:
Microsoft Press Store
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Independent booksellers – Shop local
You can also read it online through Safari.

Description of the Book

IT pros and power users consider the free Windows Sysinternals tools indispensable for diagnosing,
troubleshooting, and deeply understanding the Windows platform. In this extensively updated guide,
Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich and expert Windows consultant Aaron Margosis help you use these
powerful tools to optimize any Windows system’s reliability, efficiency, performance, and security. The authors
first explain Sysinternals’ capabilities and help you get started fast. Next, they offer in-depth coverage of each
major tool, from Process Explorer and Process Monitor to Sysinternals’ security and file utilities. Then, building
on this knowledge, they show the tools being used to solve real-world cases involving error messages, hangs,
sluggishness, malware infections, and much more.
Windows Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich and Aaron Margosis show you how to:
Use Process Explorer to display detailed process and system information
Use Process Monitor to capture low-level system events, and quickly filter the output to narrow down root
causes
List, categorize, and manage software that runs when you start or sign in to your computer, or when you run
Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer
Verify digital signatures of files, of running programs, and of the modules loaded in those programs
Use Autoruns, Process Explorer, Sigcheck, and Process Monitor features that can identify and clean malware
infestations
Inspect permissions on files, keys, services, shares, and other objects
Use Sysmon to monitor security-relevant events across your network
Generate memory dumps when a process meets specified criteria
 Execute processes remotely, and close files that were opened remotely
Manage Active Directory objects and trace LDAP API calls
Capture detailed data about processors, memory, and clocks
Troubleshoot unbootable devices, file-in-use errors, unexplained communication, and many other problems
Understand Windows core concepts that aren’t well-documented elsewhere

Sample Chapter
You can read samples from the book at this link on Amazon.com.

Table of Contents
Part I: Getting started
Chapter 1 Getting started with the Sysinternals utilities
Chapter 2 Windows core concepts
Part II: Usage guide
Chapter 3 Process Explorer
Chapter 4 Autoruns
Chapter 5 Process Monitor
Chapter 6 ProcDump
Chapter 7 PsTools
Chapter 8 Process and diagnostic utilities
Chapter 9 Security utilities
Chapter 10 Active Directory utilities
Chapter 11 Desktop utilities
Chapter 12 File utilities
Chapter 13 Disk utilities
Chapter 14 Network and communication utilities
Chapter 15 System information utilities
Chapter 16 Miscellaneous utilities
Part III: Troubleshooting — "The Case of the Unexplained..."
Chapter 17 Error messages
Chapter 18 Crashes
Chapter 19 Hangs and sluggish performance
Chapter 20 Malware
Chapter 21 Understanding system behavior
Chapter 22 Developer troubleshooting

Errata
See the Errata & Updates tab on the Microsoft Press web site
 Inside Native Applications
3/24/2021 • 3 minutes to read • Edit Online

Mark Russinovich Published: November 1, 2006

Introduction
If you have some familiarity with NT's architecture you are probably aware that the API that Win32 applications
use isn't the "real" NT API. NT's operating environments, which include POSIX, OS/2 and Win32, talk to their
client applications via their own APIs, but talk to NT using the NT "native" API. The native API is mostly
undocumented, with only about 25 of its 250 functions described in the Windows NT Device Driver Kit.
What most people don't know, however, is that "native" applications exist on NT that are not clients of any of the
operating environments. These programs speak the native NT API and can't use operating environment APIs like
Win32. Why would such programs be needed" Any program that must run before the Win32 subsystem is
started (around the time the logon box appears) must be a native application. The most visible example of a
native application is the "autochk" program that runs chkdsk during the initialization Blue Screen (its the
program that prints the "."'s on the screen). Naturally, the Win32 operating environment server, CSRSS.EXE
(Client-Server Runtime Subsystem), must also be a native application.
In this article I'm going to describe how native applications are built and how they work.

How Does Autochk Get Executed

Autochk runs in between the time that NT's boot and system start drivers are loaded, and when paging is turned
on. At this point in the boot sequence Session Manager (smss.exe) is getting NT's user-mode environment off-
the-ground and no other programs are active. The HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\BootExecute value, a MULTI_SZ, contains the names and arguments of programs that are executed
by Session Manager, and is where Autochk is specified. Here is what you'll typically find if you look at this value,
where "Autochk" is passed "*" as an argument:

Autocheck Autochk *

Session Manager looks in the <winnt>\system32 directory for the executables listed in this value. When
Autochk runs there are no files open so Autochk can open any volume in raw-mode, including the boot drive,
and manipulate its on-disk data structures. This wouldn't be possible at any later point.

Building Native Applications

Microsoft doesn't document it, but the NT DDK Build utility knows how to make native applications (and its
probably used to compile Autochk). You specify information in a SOURCES file that defines the application, the
same as would be done for device drivers. However, instead of indicating to Build that you want a driver, you tell
it you want a native applicationin the SOURCES file like this:

TARGETTYPE=PROGRAM

The Build utility uses a standard makefile to guide it, \ddk\inc\makefile.def, which looks for a run-time library
named nt.lib when compiling native applications. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't ship this file with the DDK (its
included in the Server 2003 DDK, but I suspect that if you link with that version your native application won't
run on XP or Windows 2000). However, you can work around this problem by including a line in makefile.def
that overrides the selection of nt.lib by specifying Visual C++'s runtime library, msvcrt.lib
If you run Build under the DDK's "Checked Build" environment it will produce a native application with full
debug information under %BASEDIR%\lib%CPU%\Checked (e.g. c:\ddk\lib\i386\checked\native.exe), and if you
invoke it in the "Free Build" environment a release version of the program will end up in
%BASEDIR%\lib%CPU%\Free. These are the same places device driver images are placed by Build.
Native applications have ".exe" file extensions but you cannot run them like Win32 .exe's. If you try you'll get the
message:
The application cannot be run in Windows NT mode.

Inside a Native Application

Instead of winmain or main , the entry point for native applications is NtProcessStar tup . Also unlike the other
Win32 entry points, native applications must reach into a data structure passed as its sole parameter to locate
command-line arguments.
The majority of a native application's runtime environment is provided by NTDLL.DLL, NT's native API export
library. Native applications must create their own heap from which to allocate storage by using RtlCreateHeap ,
a NTDLL function. Memory is allocated from a heap with RtlAllocateHeap and freed with RtlFreeHeap . If a
native application wishes to print something to the screen it must use the function NtDisplayString , which will
output to the initialization Blue Screen.
Native applications don't simply return from their startup function like Win32 programs, since there is no
runtime code to return to. Instead, they must terminate themselves by calling NtProcessTerminate .
The NTDLL runtime consists of hundreds of functions that allow native applications to perform file I/O, interact
with device drivers, and perform interprocess communications. Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, the vast
majority of these functions are undocumented.
 Sysinternals Software License Terms
11/18/2019 • 5 minutes to read • Edit Online

These license terms are an agreement between Sysinternals (a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft
Corporation) and you. Please read them. They apply to the software you are downloading from
technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals, which includes the media on which you received it, if any. The terms also
apply to any Sysinternals
updates,
supplements,
Internet-based services,
and support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items. If so, those terms apply.
BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THEM, DO NOT
USE THE SOFTWARE.
If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.

Installation and User Rights

You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your devices.

Scope of License
The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Sysinternals
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software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical
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work around any technical limitations in the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law
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make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this
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publish the software for others to copy;
rent, lease or lend the software;
transfer the software or this agreement to any third party; or
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Please be aware that, similar to other debug tools that capture “process state” information, files saved by
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you are aware of this and take sole responsibility for any personally identifiable or other sensitive information
provided to Microsoft or any other party through your use of the software.

Documentation
Any person that has valid access to your computer or internal network may copy and use the documentation for
your internal, reference purposes.

Export Restrictions
The software is subject to United States export laws and regulations. You must comply with all domestic and
international export laws and regulations that apply to the software. These laws include restrictions on
destinations, end users and end use. For additional information, see www.microsoft.com/exporting .

Support Services
Because this software is "as is," we may not provide support services for it.

Entire Agreement
This agreement, and the terms for supplements, updates, Internet-based services and support services that you
use, are the entire agreement for the software and support services.

Applicable Law
United States . If you acquired the software in the United States , Washington state law governs the
interpretation of this agreement and applies to claims for breach of it, regardless of conflict of laws principles.
The laws of the state where you live govern all other claims, including claims under state consumer protection
laws, unfair competition laws, and in tort.
Outside the United States . If you acquired the software in any other country, the laws of that country apply.

Legal Effect
This agreement describes certain legal rights. You may have other rights under the laws of your country. You
may also have rights with respect to the party from whom you acquired the software. This agreement does not
change your rights under the laws of your country if the laws of your country do not permit it to do so.

Disclaimer of Warranty
The software is licensed "as-is." You bear the risk of using it. Sysinternals gives no express warranties,
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cannot change. To the extent permitted under your local laws, sysinternals excludes the implied warranties of
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Limitation on and Exclusion of Remedies and Damages

You can recover from sysinternals and its suppliers only direct damages up to U.S. $5.00. You cannot recover any
other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
This limitation applies to
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It also applies even if Sysinternals knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages. The above
limitation or exclusion may not apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of
incidental, consequential or other damages.
Please note: As this software is distributed in Quebec , Canada , some of the clauses in this
agreement are provided below in French.
Remarque : Ce logiciel étant distribué au Québec, Canada, cer taines des clauses dans ce contrat
sont fournies ci-dessous en français.
EXONÉRATION DE GARANTIE. Le logiciel visé par une licence est offert « tel quel ». Toute utilisation de ce
logiciel est à votre seule risque et péril. Sysinternals n'accorde aucune autre garantie expresse. Vous pouvez
bénéficier de droits additionnels en vertu du droit local sur la protection dues consommateurs, que ce contrat ne
peut modifier. La ou elles sont permises par le droit locale, les garanties implicites de qualité marchande,
d'adéquation à un usage particulier et d'absence de contrefaçon sont exclues.
LIMITATION DES DOMMAGES-INTÉRÊTS ET EXCLUSION DE RESPONSABILITÉ POUR LES
DOMMAGES. Vous pouvez obtenir de Sysinternals et de ses fournisseurs une indemnisation en cas de
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les autres dommages, y compris les dommages spéciaux, indirects ou accessoires et pertes de bénéfices.
Cette limitation concerne :
tout ce qui est relié au logiciel, aux services ou au contenu (y compris le code) figurant sur des sites Internet
tiers ou dans des programmes tiers ; et
les réclamations au titre de violation de contrat ou de garantie, ou au titre de responsabilité stricte, de
négligence ou d'une autre faute dans la limite autorisée par la loi en vigueur.
Elle s'applique également, même si Sysinternals connaissait ou devrait connaître l'éventualité d'un tel
dommage. Si votre pays n'autorise pas l'exclusion ou la limitation de responsabilité pour les dommages
indirects, accessoires ou de quelque nature que ce soit, il se peut que la limitation ou l'exclusion ci-dessus ne
s'appliquera pas à votre égard.
EFFET JURIDIQUE. Le présent contrat décrit certains droits juridiques. Vous pourriez avoir d'autres droits
prévus par les lois de votre pays. Le présent contrat ne modifie pas les droits que vous confèrent les lois de
votre pays si celles-ci ne le permettent pas.
 Sysinternals Licensing FAQ
4/21/2021 • 2 minutes to read • Edit Online

Published: September 28, 2009

Q: How many copies of Sysinternals utilities may I freely load or use on computers owned by my company?
A: There is no limit to the number of times you may install and use the software on your devices or those you
support.
Q: May I distribute Sysinternals utilities in my software, on my website, or with my magazine?
A: No. We are not offering any distribution licenses, even if the 3rd party is distributing them for free. We
encourage people to download the utilities from our download center where they can be assured to get the
most recent version of the utility.
Q: Can I license or re -use any Sysinternals source code?
A: No. We will no longer offer the Sysinternals source code for download or license.
Q: Will the Sysinternals tools continue to be freely available?
A: Yes, Microsoft has no plans to remove or charge for these tools.
Q: Is there technical support available for the Sysinternals tools?
A: No. All Sysinternals tools are offered 'as is' with no official Microsoft support. We do maintain a Sysinternals
dedicated community support forum: https://forum.sysinternals.com/.