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ProcessActivityView vs strace: catalog facts
ProcessActivityView	strace
Best for: Seeing which files a specific Windows program touches	Best for: Debugging and diagnosing programs on Linux at the system call level
Free Freeware from NirSoft, free to use and redistribute unmodified.	Free Free and open source under the LGPL 2.1 or later.
Windows	Linux, Command line
Per-file counts of opens, reads, writes and bytes Shows which DLL opened each file All 4 strengths for ProcessActivityView Per-file counts of opens, reads, writes and bytes Shows which DLL opened each file Can launch a process and trace it from the start Command-line options for scripted runs	Traces programs without recompiling them Attaches to already running processes All 4 strengths for strace Traces programs without recompiling them Attaches to already running processes Decodes file descriptors into paths and details Packaged by most Linux distributions
The published requirements list versions through Windows 8 Injects a DLL into the inspected process All 3 limitations for ProcessActivityView The published requirements list versions through Windows 8 Injects a DLL into the inspected process Separate builds are needed for 32-bit and 64-bit targets	Linux only Tracing through ptrace slows the traced program
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Not open source	Open source
License: Freeware	License: LGPL-2.1-or-later
No account needed	No account needed
Offline features available	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for ProcessActivityView nirsoft.net/utils/process_activity_view.html Catalog checked October 8, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for strace strace.io Catalog checked October 1, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.