Windows Resource Monitor can show you which handles and modules are in use by a selected process.
- Handles are pointers that refer to system elements including (but not limited to) files, registry keys, events, or directories.
- Modules are helper files or programs including (but not limited to) dynamic-link library (DLL) files.
 | To start Resource Monitor |
Click Start, click in the Start Search box, type resmon.exe, and then press ENTER.
| To view all handles and modules associated with a process |
On the CPU tab, in the Image column of the Processes table, select the check box next to the name of the process for which you want to see associated handles and modules. Selected processes are moved to the top of the column.
Click the title bars of the Associated Handles and Associated Modules tables to expand them. An orange bar below the title bar of each table shows the processes you have selected.
Review the results in the detail tables. To refine the results, you can use the following procedure to search for specific handles in the Associated Handles table.
| To identify applications using a handle |
In the title bar of the Associated Handles table, click in the Search Handles box, type the name of the handle you want to search for, and then click the search button.
Note The search string is not case-sensitive, and wildcards are not supported. You can type all or part of a string to search handles. For example, searching for c:\windows will return all handles with c:\windows as part of the handle name.
To refine your search results, in the Processes table, you can select the check box next to the name of a process after searching. The results will then be filtered by the selected process or processes.
Note The results table is not dynamically updated. If you think that the system state has changed, click the search button again to refresh the results.