To find out what processes are using a particular port number, you can use the following example which looks at Port 80.
You can change the port number by replacing any instances of 80 with your preferred number.
- Press the Windows Key + R to bring up the Run dialog.
- Type cmd and press Enter to open the Command Prompt.
- Select all the text in the box below and press Ctrl + C to copy it:
netstat -ano | findstr "80" - Right click in the Command Prompt and click Paste.
- You can delete the “80” and replace it with another number if required but make sure that you keep the quotes in (e.g. “443”, not 443).
- Press Enter to send the command.
- Five columns of text will be shown. Each row is a connection to the port number.
Take note of the numbers in the last column as these are PID (Process Identifiers) numbers. - Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager.
- Click the Processes tab.
- At the top, click View -> Select Columns…
- Check “PID (Process Identifier)” if it is not already checked.
- Click OK.
- In the Process list, there will be a PID column. Click on the title of the column to sort the list in order by PID.
- Find the “Image Name” in relation to the PID and this will be the application using the Port (e.g. Dropbox.exe or Skype.exe).