Microsoft tests Windows diagnostic tool

Microsoft has launched a beta service that lets Windows users launch the Sysinternals library of free diagnostic and troubleshooting tools - including the popular Process Explorer - from a web browser.

The service, dubbed "Sysinternals Live," is in beta, Microsoft said in a note posted to the Sysinternals website Sysinternals Live, a service that enables you to execute Sysinternals tools direct from the web without hunting for and manually downloading them," the notice read.

Sysinternals, the brand name for more than 70 separate tools, was acquired by Microsoft when it bought Winternals Software in mid-2006. Microsoft also brought Winternals' co-founder Mark Russinovich into the company as a technical fellow.

Among the better-known tools in the Sysinternals collection are Process Explorer, an über-Task Manager, Processor Monitor, and RootKitRevealer, which sniffs out signs of rootkit installations by examining the Windows registry.

Users can launch the Sysinternals tools by using the syntax \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\toolname in Windows' Run box. (The name of the tool, as shown on Sysinternals Live, must be substituted for "toolname.") They can also launch the tools from the service's bare-bones web page However, some browsers, including Firefox, default to first saving the file, as in a traditional download, and require users to install the utility.