I do not count on the built-in Windows Task Manager because it is very basic and lacks of many good and advanced features. Having a good task manager such as Process Explorer or AnVir Task Manager on a local computer is a must to analyze the running processes. However, what if you have a few computers to manage? Instead of jumping from one computer to another to check if they are running any illegal software or whether their computer is infected by virus, here is a task manager software that allows you to “remotely” access other computer’s running processes without installing any software on the remote computer.

With Remote Process Explorer, you will be able to not only get the list of processes but also manage them. You can kill a process, run a new one or change the priority of a process on a local or remote computer. To do it, you do not have to install additional software on a remote computer because the program uses the built-in functions of the operating system. Remote Process Explorer will show you complete information about each running process, when and by whom this process was run, the path to its executable file, how much memory and CPU it uses. You can get all information available in Task Manager not only for your computer, but also for a remote one.

Remote Process Explorer has tools for managing a remote computer built into it. You can switch off a remote computer, restart it or send a message to it. You can also use the standard tools for administering a computer: Remote desktop, Computer management, Event viewer, etc

Before writing about this tool and sharing it with you, of course I’ve done my homework by testing it on my computer first. Both my desktop and laptop are running Windows XP Professional and I couldn’t get it to work. I can view local running processes by not on remote computer. The error message I got was “Could not connect to the remote PC. Error: The RPC server is unavailable“. Sent an email to the developer pf Remote Process Explorer but did not receive any reply. So I had to figure out how to get it to work. I remembered IntelliAdmin had some similar tools that can remotely enable/disable USD drives so I sent him an email for a solution.

After 3 days, Steve from IntelliAdmin kindly replied my emailing informing me that there are 3 requirements that must be met in order for tools like these to work in a local area network workgroup. Do take note that if you have Windows XP Home edition, then none of the below matters since Microsoft has crippled it; so it is not possible for tools like these to work.

1. Make sure the administrator account has a password. Blank password will NOT work.
Go to Control Panel > User Accounts > Create a password for the admin user.
2. Make sure simple file sharing is disabled.
- Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > View tab > Scroll right to the bottom at Advanced Settings > Uncheck Use simple file sharing.
3. Make sure file and printer sharing exception is allowed in the firewall or simply turn off the Windows Firewall.
- Go to Start > Run > type netsh firewall set service type = FILEANDPRINT mode = ENABLE and click OK.

Remote Process Explorer cost $75 for standard license but is free for non-commercial use. To get your free registration code, visit this page, enter your full name, e-mail address, address, city, zip, country and click the Submit button. I believe the Remote Process Explorer registration code is manually generated and sent to you by their staff because I did not the code immediately. Had to wait nearly 2 days for the code to arrive my mailbox. Once you get the code, you can enter it in Help > Enter Registration Code.

Remote Process Explorer runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.

[ Download Remote Process Explorer ]

Technorati Tags: remote, process, explorer, security, network

(1) Car Performance - Track your car’s fuel consumption and see if it’s with an acceptable range or needs to be taken to the service. Read more: Car Performance - Track Fuel Consumption Of Your Car

(2) CatchVideo - Convert YouTube videos into a number of different video and audio formats and then download them to your computer. Read more: CatchVideo - Convert & Download YouTube Videos.

(3) EtherPad - Easily work on your documents together with colleagues in real-time. Anything you or others type will automatically show up on the screen of every participant. One neat feature is the ability to keep track of document changes and easily revert the document to an earlier version at any time. Read more: EtherPad - Collaborate On Text Docs Online.

(4) Generatus - How many hours have you wasted trying to come up with some cool status message for your Facebook account? Enter Generatus, a simple website that can generate a witty status message for your account with a click of a button. Read more: Generatus - Cool Facebook Status Message Generator

(5) LetMeGoogleThatForYou - This site is meant to be sarcastic at those who are too lazy to look for answers in Google and keep on bugging others with questions that could be easily answered by a simple Google search. So if there’s someone who has been irritating you with simple questions, you could use this site which combines comedy with sarcasm while helping your friend. Read more …

(6) Lyrster - If you can’t remember the name of some song but know a few lines from its lyrics try searching for it on Lyrster. It’s a lyrics search engine that can help you find the songs you’re looking for. Read more: Lyrster - Find A Song.

(7) OhMyGas - Find the cheapest gas prices in your area after you input the zipcode. It relies on user submissions and the users who find cheap gas report it to the site which updates the information on the site. Read more: OhMyGas - Find The Cheapest Gas Prices In Your Area.

(8) OpenTable - Search for best restaurants and make dinner reservations online. Browse restaurants by cities, refine them by cusine, or take a look at the best restaurants in the city based on different criteria as voted by the diners. Read more: OpenTable - Find Good Restaurants & Book Tables Online.

(9) SignsBOX - Search and stream music online. You can listen to your favorite songs and add them to personal SingsBOX playlist. Read more: SignsBOX - Find & Steam Music Online.

(10) Zapr - Zapr creates a personal web server on your computer and enables you to share files online in a whole new way. Read more: Zapr - Share Files Directly From Your Desktop.

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last 3-4 days. If you want us to send you daily round-up of all cool websites we come across leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

(By) Aibek, the guy behind MakeUseOf.com

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Get 25% off automatically when you purchase VMware Fusion online, using the coupon code “FusionRocks” for a limited time only.

VMware Fusion has been my recommendation for some time because of the wide support for guest OS’s including OS X Server, but the new Parallels Desktop 4.0 release does a lot to close the gap. I imagine the coupon is motivated in part by the increased competition from Parallels 4.0 this month.

Our own Darrell Etherington wrote up a comparison of VMware Fusion 2.0 and Parallels 4.0 where he slightly preferred Fusion. Now it is even a better deal at 25% off.

The coupon expires at midnight (Pacific time) at Sunday, November 30.

Orb Networks has officially announced the availability of their OrbLive 2.0 app for iPhone/iPod touch.

OrbLive enables users to stream media content from their computer — music, internet radio stations, videos, photos, webcam streams, and even live TV (with a TV Tuner) — to their touch device over Wi-Fi and 2G/3G cellular networks. Working in conjunction with a free Windows PC application, OrbLive removes the limitations of hard drive capacities and by utilizing Orb’s “powerful networking capabilities” allows users access to their entire media library anywhere they can connect to the internet. The app also gives users the ability to preview all their Office documents (docs, xls, pdf, ppt, txt file formats are all supported). However, it should be noted that since OrbLive is dependent on the server application to be running, users will have to launch Boot Camp or their choice of virtualization software to make use of the app on their device, though Orb did say they are working on a OS X and Linux version.

Originally released as a jailbreak app, OrbLive 2.0, with the advent of the App Store, brings the myriad of streaming options to those uninterested in jailbreaking their device. The app is available now in two flavors, the full version for $9.99 and a free version that limits you to three randomly selected files of each media type, but beyond that neither require any recurring service fees.

In my brief testing of the application, it worked exactly as advertised and allowed me access to all the media files from my WinXP partition with just a few clicks. The video streaming, though, left a lot to be desired, even over a local Wi-Fi network as it appears to be transcoded and thus was severely pixelated at times. You also couldn’t fast-foward/rewind. However, despite these minor quibbles, OrbLive is a boon to those with large media libraries, those indecisive about what to sync, and of course those that interested in watching live TV on their touch device.

For additional reading about OrbLive, be sure to check jkOnTheRun’s coverage.