Autoruns vs htop

Autoruns shows programs and drivers configured to run during Windows boot, login, or when certain built-in Windows applications start. It reports startup items from locations such as the Startup folder, Registry keys, Explorer extensions, services, scheduled tasks, and Winlogon entries. Users can hide signed Microsoft entries to focus on third-party items, inspect startup images configured for other accounts, and disable an entry or delete its configuration. Scan options include signature verification and VirusTotal hash checks; submitting files not previously scanned requires the upload option, and VirusTotal features require accepting its terms. The download includes Autorunsc, a command-line version that can output CSV or tab-delimited data, verify signatures, and scan an offline Windows system. The Autoruns and Autorunsc download is listed as 3 MB, and Microsoft offers a Sysinternals Live option. Autoruns costs nothing, with no limit on installation or use on devices owned or supported by the user, but no redistribution license. Microsoft says Sysinternals tools are provided as is without official support and points users to a community forum.

htop is a free, text-mode interactive process viewer for Linux and macOS. It runs in console or X terminals and requires ncurses, offering a command-line interface for watching and managing running processes. Current releases also list FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, and Solaris as supported systems. The project, founded in 2004, is distributed as source code on GitHub and as pre-compiled packages from operating-system distributors, with installation examples for Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, and Arch Linux; Homebrew includes it for macOS. Its display can show Unicode Braille graphs and a Unicode tree view, including visual support for large processor counts. Users can set I/O scheduling priority and CPU affinity, choose dark or light terminal themes, and customize header meters. The memory percentage covers process-used memory; htop does not provide a per-process SWAP column.