I'm looking for a program you can install which will give you access
to exactly what XP is doing when it shows you an 'hour glass.'  It's
nice of XP to let me know it's working, but I'd like Microsoft (or
someone else) to offer a more verbose 'hour glass' feature which
explains exactly what the computer is trying to accomplish.  I often
sit there staring at the hourglass wondering, "Ok, so what the hell is
taking so damn long??!  This computer executes 1 million commands per
second.... Keep me in the loop!"  I have wrote my own programs, and I
know it's completely possible to provide feedback to the user at the
beginning of each routine.  If XP provided more feedback than just an
hourglass, it would be a lot easier to figure out exactly what the
hold up is.

---

Clarification of Question by dave925-ga on 26 Nov 2005 20:50 PST

FYI, I have XP Home Edition.

dave...

A free utility such as Process Viewer seems like it
will do everything you're looking for:

"PrcView is a process viewer utility that displays
 detailed information about processes running under
 Windows. For each process it displays memory, threads
 and module usage. For each DLL it shows full path and
 version information. PrcView comes with a command line
 version that allows you to write scripts to check if a
 process is running, kill it, etc."
http://www.xmlsp.com/pview/prcview.htm


SysInternals freeware FileMon takes you even deeper:

"FileMon monitors and displays file system activity on
 a system in real-time. Its advanced capabilities make
 it a powerful tool for exploring the way Windows works,
 seeing how applications use the files and DLLs, or
 tracking down problems in system or application file
 configurations. Filemon's timestamping feature will
 show you precisely when every open, read, write or
 delete, happens, and its status column tells you the
 outcome. FileMon is so easy to use that you'll be an
 expert within minutes. It begins monitoring when you
 start it, and its output window can be saved to a file
 for off-line viewing. It has full search capability,
 and if you find that you're getting information overload,
 simply set up one or more filters."
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html


I'm aware of both of these because I have them on my system.

Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that  
the answer cannot be improved upon by way of a dialog  
established through the "Request for Clarification" process. 
 
A user's guide on this topic is on skermit-ga's site, here: 
http://www.christopherwu.net/google_answers/answer_guide.html#how_clarify 
 
sublime1-ga


Searches done, via Google:

PrcView
://www.google.com/search?q=PrcView

filemon
://www.google.com/search?q=filemon

Cool, I'll check them out. Thanks! -Dave