Introduction.

Marking something of a departure for Processor Emporium we recently had the pleasure of recieving some software to carry out a review on. For a site which is dedicated purely to hardware, this requires us to approach this review somewhat differently from our normal subject matter. Given the fact that PC hardware is nothing without software to run on it, reviewing it is fairly straightforward.

For this review we received a copy of WinTasks 4 Professional from LIUtilites. WinTasks is a utility designed to give Windows users far more control over the processes running on their PC than is normally allowed under Windows. This has many advantages as it allows users to control how processes are running, along with the memory and CPU allocation for each process. Those from a Unix or Linux background will be instantly familiar with this concept, as they have much of the ability to control processes along with a number of readily available utilities such as Top and MemTool (Solaris).

Naturally we at Processor Emporium were very keen to see this software in operation and to see how we can use it to enhance our test process. To find out what we thought of WinTasks, read on...

Installation.

With any software the logical starting point is the installation. Our copy of WinTasks arrived in a rather pleasant DVD-style CD case (these seem to be very popular these days). As well as the CD there is a rather useful 20 page manual which details the main features of the software. WinTasks 4 Professional is designed to run under Windows 95, 98, NT4, 2000 and XP.

The installation itself is very fast as WinTasks in less than 2MB in size. To be honest this was more than refreshing to see as most other software in recent years has been subject to a rather large degree of “bloat” as new features have been added (I will try to stay off this subject as it could be rather diversionary).

As with all modern Windows software it will opt to install in a directory under C:/Program Files.

The Software.