What exactly are "Handles" in powershell?

Question

When I type the "Get-Proces -Name Process" command in powershell, I get a list that has 6 headings. The 6 are Handles, NPM(K), pm(K) WS(K) CPU(s) and Id

What exactly are Handles? Also what does CPU(s) represent as well?

Answer 1

Favourite answer

A process handle is an integer value that identifies a process to Windows. The Win32 API calls them a HANDLE; handles to windows are called HWND and handles to modules HMODULE. Threads inside processes have a thread handle, and files and other resources (such as registry keys) have handles also.

Answer 2

A handle is an integer that Windows assigns to processes.

Answer 3

Handles represent system resources in a Windows OS.  They are used for files, devices, timers, blocks of allocated memory, windows and much more. 

The other columns are:

    NPM = Non-Paged Memory (always available)

    PM   =  Paged memory (may be swapped out to disk/SSD)

    WS   =  Working Set size, an estimate of how much of paged memory

                 actively being used.

    CPU =  Processor time used (total for all cores on all processors)

    Id      =  Process id number (unique on this computer)

    SI     =  Session id number (0 for services, 1=1st logged user, 2=2nd

                 logged user, etc.)

No, I'm not a sysadmin.  I got most of that info by starting with the "Get-Help Get-Process" command, and then browsing to the URL in that output to get the web-based documentation.  (Web version has more examples.)