In today’s world it can be important to keep an eye out for what is going on behind the scene on your computer.  Windows Sysinternals Process Monitor V2.02 has evolved into a must have utility!

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

The title Process Monitor really does not convey the functionality of this tool.  It does not just monitor processes, it allows you to monitor:

• Processes and thread activity
• Profiling events
• File system activity
• Registry activity
• Network activity

All of this with filtering ability to zero in on a target.  It is a mature product and comes with many useful features.

Give it a test spin and see what it can do for you.  Just turning on the network monitor and watching what all processes in your computer are communicating over the network can be revealing.  Got a trojan house app on your machine?  This will not only show you when it communicates over the net, but also your are able to track down what processes and threads it has, watch registry settings it is using and where it is located on your drive.