Process Lasso has been designed to optimize a computer’s responsiveness and stability by automatically adjusting processes and applications that take more than their fair share of the computer’s resources. It does so by adjusting the process priority of those processes automatically.

A basic example is a process that is running in high or even realtime priority on the system. If that process takes to many cpu cycles or memory then it will be automatically reduced in priority by Process Lasso 4. That does not stop the process from running, but it usually keeps other programs and the computer from slowing down or coming to a complete halt.

Process Lasso 4 has been released today, adding a wealth of new features to the excellent software. Interested users can take a look at all changes at the Process Lasso Development Log. Among the important changes and additions is a new process watchdog feature that restarts, terminates or changes a process affinities if it exceeds a given cpu or virtual memory limit.

Process Lasso has now been better integrated with Vista and Windows 7, offers an optimized core engine and a new process restraint history.

Process Lasso 4 is available as a free version and commercial version. The free version supports the following core features:

• ProBalance – ProBalance, which stands for Process Balance, is the name of our proprietary algorithm that temporarily adjusts the priority of running processes in an effort to keep your system responsive during high loads.
• Gaming mode – Process Lasso offers a proprietary ‘Gaming mode’ algorithm which SAFELY and EFFECTIVELY manages process priorities in a way optimal for full screen games. Furthermore, it temporarily places your PC in the ‘High Performance’ power scheme.
• Persistent priorities
• Persistent CPU affinities

A comparison of the free and pro version of Process Lasso is available at the developer website. Some Process Lasso Pro features are available in the free version during the trial period, after which they are turned off.

Process Lasso 4 is available for download for all supported 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the windows operating system.

Process Lasso can be best described as a software that will automatically adjust process priorities based on a computer’s condition. Bitsum, the Process Lasso developers, call the feature ProBalance. ProBalance adjusts process priorities so that running processes will not impact the responsiveness of the PC.

The main Process Lasso Pro screen looks like an advanced version of the Windows Task Manager. The application displays a graph at the top informing the user about processor use, system responsiveness, process restraint and memory load.

The processes are listed in the middle with the possibility to switch between all processes and only active processes. Each process is listed with its name, user, application name, priority class, cpu affinity and several additional parameters.

The lower half of the screen contains a log and the status bar which lists the total number of processes, cpu utilization, responsiveness, memory load and system uptime.

Process Lasso works out of the box but there are lots of configuration settings and features available to optimize the computer system.

Differences between Process Lasso and Process Lasso Pro

The free version of Process Lasso includes ProBalance, the process management component of the program, a gaming mode and the ability to set persistent cpu affinities and process priorities.

The pro version adds a number of features to that including automatic gaming mode, cpu throttling, anti-sleep processes, high performance power scheme processes, running the core engine as a service and schedulers.

A right-click on any process in the Process Lasso window opens a context menu with lots of options to configure that process.

Among these options is the ability to set a priority class, cpu affinities, throttle levels, default process priority, cpu affinity and throttle level, limit the number of program instances, auto restart the process if it is terminated, always terminate a process whenever it is started or to restart the process.

Experienced users can tweak lots and lots of settings that are offered in Process Lasso. Those are not needed for the core functionality on the other hand.

Registration

Process Lasso Pro displays a window during installation where a license key needs to be entered. A button in the same window will lead to the developer website where a license can be requested by entering an email address. The license key is displayed on the next page without email verification.

Verdict

Process Lasso Pro is a helpful software program especially for users who experience system slowdowns regularly due to processes that are maxing out the cpu or computer memory.

The program is offered as a 32-bit and 64-bit edition which can be freely downloaded today at the Giveaway of the Day website. The developers website can be accessed here. It contains additional information and the documentation.

Monitored Windows processes get killed at the moment after they are started instead of being blocked outright so that even a start is not possible anymore. A few small scripts can slip through at the moment because of this behavior as it takes some time to recognize a newly launched application and send the kill command to the computer system.

Process Blocker uses a simple text file that is placed in the same installation directory as the main application. This text file contains names of executables that are not allowed to be launched on a computer system. The program itself is added as a Windows Service to the system which has to be restarted after making changes to the text file.

Process Blocker will display a user notification in the Windows System Tray whenever a process has been blocked by the service. A similar application that provides a better user experience is the process manager Process Lasso. The developers of Process Blocker on the other hand are not even halfway through their roadmap. The next step will move the management of processes from the text file to a Group Policy administrative template. Other planned features are killing processes and applications using its crc (in case they get renamed) or full path, recording process errors and information in Windows Event log, allowing users to only run applications from specified folders (e.g. program files and Windows) and changing process killing to process execution prevention.

Process Lasso can probably be described as a application that manages processes. This is however not a task manager replacement but a software that can be configured to automatically react in certain situations.

Those situations include processes that slow down the system by using way more cpu cycles to bring other applications and the system to a standstill or processes that are run in a higher priority when detected.

So, to keep it short. Process Lasso can be either run as a service in Windows or as a background task consuming only a low amount of resources handling processes that either use to much cpu cycles or those that you want to prioritize.

It can also stop any process that you select automatically from that time on. Another useful feature is that it logs all processes that are running on the system making it easy to identify any processes that could be harmful.

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Process Lasso Homepage