Export a List of Running Processes as a Text File in Windows 11

 

First, you’ll need to open Command Prompt as an administrator. To do this, click the Windows Search icon in the taskbar, type “Command Prompt” in the Search bar, right-click the Command Prompt app in the search results, and then click “Run as Administrator” in the context menu.

Command Prompt will now open with elevated rights. Once in Command Prompt, run this command:

tasklist

This command returns a list of this information about each process:

• Image Name
• Process ID (PID)
• Session Name
• Session #
• Mem Usage

The actual output will be much longer than this, but here’s an example of how it looks:

Image Name                     PID Session Name        Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
System Idle Process              0 Services                   0          8 K
System                           4 Services                   0      3,640 K
Registry                       160 Services                   0    101,800 K
smss.exe                       568 Services                   0      1,096 K
csrss.exe                      912 Services                   0      5,604 K
wininit.exe                   1008 Services                   0      5,916 K
csrss.exe                      316 Console                    1      7,640 K
services.exe                   628 Services                   0     10,284 K
lsass.exe                      816 Services                   0     21,916 K

Now, if you want to export this list as a TXT file, run this command:

tasklist>C:\serviceslist.txt

You can replace serviceslist with any name you want to give the text file.

Your TXT file is now ready. You can find this file in your Windows (C:) drive in File Explorer. Open File Explorer, navigate to “Windows (C:),” and then locate the “serviceslist” (or whichever name you gave it) text file.

You can double-click the file to open it or send it to your administrator for further investigation.

This is a handy way to get a quick copy of your output for easier reading and to share with your staff.