Top Process Monitor 7.5

Top Process Monitor is a gadget for your Windows desktop. By default, it displays the CPU-intensive processes and their CPU usage. Top Process Monitor is a GADGET file and by such needs an additional piece of software to run. In my testing, I used the program Special edition sidebar created by Igor "Igogo" Bushin, which could install Top Process Monitor correctly.

Top Process Monitor offers a configuration menu that allows you to change the appearance of many elements of its interface. Unfortunately, this menu is confusing because the navigation is done by unnamed tabs.

A feature lacking from this widget is the ability to display a process activity graph. This would allow you to quickly see the recent usage of your CPU. Furthermore, it can only show the current CPU usage rather than a history of the usage.

Another downside of this utility is that it constantly uses a small percent of your CPU in the background. While it is not particularly CPU-extensive, one would expect a gadget to use less CPU as it negatively impacts your laptop's battery life.

In conclusion, Top Process Monitor is a good gadget to quickly see the processes running on your computer, and their CPU usage. Yet, it lacks some features such as displaying graphs.