How can I view the active threads of a running program?

Question

I know I can see all running processes in Task Manager. But how can I see the single threads that run inside these processes?

Answer 1

1. Get Process Explorer.

2. Enable Show Details for All Processes from the File menu:

   

3. In the main pane, select the process you're interested in:

   

4. Open the context menu (right-click) for the selected process and click Properties:

   

5. On the Threads tab, you'll be able to see a list of the running threads inside that process:

   

Symbols

If your troubleshooting requires you to get more detail, it is often very helpful to load debugging symbols into Process Explorer. This is how:

1. If you don't already have a Windows debugger installed, you're going to have to install the Debugging Tools for Windows first.

2. In Process Explorer, open Configure Symbols... from the Options menu:

   

3. If you have the Debugging Tools (or another Windows debugger) installed, Process Explorer will automatically find the dbghelp.dll file. Otherwise, set the correct path here.

   

   The Symbols path should look something like:

   SRV*C:\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
   

   The only part you'll want to adjust is C:\Symbols. That's the location where the debugging symbols will be cached.