Lacks direction

DeviceIOView is supposed to give you the ability to watch data transfers between software and device drivers. Besides producing several error messages, its overall lack of direction left a lot to be desired.

The user interface is plain and seemingly straightforward, with menu and command buttons at the top, and two panels at the bottom. We clicked on the Start button since it was the only active button. A separate window appeared with a list of active processes to choose from. But no matter which process we chose, the program became unresponsive and produced an error message. Once the program became responsive again, nothing appeared in either of the two interface panels. And since we had no process information to work with, we couldn't access any of the other command buttons. The Help menu merely provided a link to the publisher's Web site, which was cluttered and hard to navigate. It didn't offer much in terms of help.

Thankfully, the program is free, so you're not out anything to try it. But with such lackluster results, we recommend that you save yourself the time and trouble and look for a more functional process data tool.