To an average user, the importance of Windows Task Manager is not that high. But, this powerful system application can help you perform several critical operations. Generally, it is used to visualize how the system resources are being consumed. In this tutorial, we'll learn to exploit the power of this application fully. It's not just about inspecting resource consumption alone. You can perform several advanced task management operations. The information given below applies to both Windows 10 and 11 task managers. Much of the information applies to the Windows 7 task manager too.
Although, a common Windows user rarely uses all the features of the task manager, knowing all of its options can be a lifesaver in the time of need. And, that's what we'll learn in this tutorial.
Remember, while working with task management actions, if you're unsure what you're doing, skip it, and do not go ahead with it. Let's get started and learn using the Windows task manager.
Before we move ahead, let's quickly see how we can open the task manager. Although there are several ways to open it, the easiest way is as follows.
Right-click on the taskbar and click the Task Manager option from the context menu.
Now that we know how to open it, let's dive into its options and features.
1. Process Management
One of the most common activities done by the task manager is the process management. To do that, you have to go to the Processes tab which is opened—by default—whenever you open the task manager.
Understanding the Processes Tab
Whenever you open the Processes tab, you'll see a list of all the activities your computer is currently handling. This includes every program and background task that is running on your computer.
For each activity (process), you can check how much of your system's resources it's using, such as:
- CPU (Central Processing Unit): This column shows how much of your computer's brainpower is being used.
- Memory: This column tells you how much of your computer's RAM is in use.
- Disk: This column indicates how much your hard drive is being accessed. The hard drive's activity (at a macro level) is shown in the column.
- Network: This column shows how much data is being sent or received over your internet connection.
How to End a Process
If you want to stop an activity (process), you can do so easily. Here's how to do it:
- Find the process you want in the list on the Processes tab.
- Right-click on it.
- Select the End Task option from the context menu.
Caution: Be careful when ending processes. Some of them are essential for your computer's smooth operation. Stopping the wrong process might make your computer unstable or even cause it to crash. It's best to end only the processes you recognize well.
The processes in this tab are divided into three different sections.
The first one is the Apps section, the second one is the Background processes section, and the last one is the Windows processes section.
When trying to end a process, stay away from the last section.
2. Performance Monitoring
The Windows Task Manager's Performance tab is a useful tool that shows live graphs of how your computer is working.
When you open this tab, you can see how much work your CPU (the brain of your computer) is doing, how much memory (RAM) is being used, how busy your hard drive is, and how much data is moving through your network.
If you carefully analyze these graphs, it can help you in assessing why your computer is slow or acting strangely. By looking at these details, you can find out what might be causing the problem.
For example, if your CPU usage is very high, it might mean a program is using too much power. If your memory usage is high, you might need to close some programs or add more RAM to your computer.
Using the Performance tab in Task Manager can help you understand what’s going on inside your computer and fix issues before they get worse. So, if your computer is lagging, check out the Performance tab and see what it's indicating.
3. Startup Programs Management
To see which programs are starting automatically on the computer's boot-up, you can switch to the Startup tab in the Windows task manager.
In this tab, you'll see a list of all the programs (applications or processes) that run when you start your computer. Next to each program, you'll see its name, publisher, status, and the impact it has on your startup or boot time.
To prevent a program from starting at the boot time, right-click on its entry in the list, and click the Disable option from the context menu.
To speed up your computer's startup time and improve its overall performance, you can disable unnecessary startup programs. But, be careful not to disable any critical programs your computer may need to run properly.
4. User Accounts Management
If your computer is shared among multiple users, the task manager's Users tab can be used to manage all of these accounts.
Upon right-clicking any account's entry, you get several options in a context menu. The two of these options used frequently by the administrators are:
- Send message: This option is often used by administrators to send an important message to a specific user.
- Sign off: The most common purpose to log off any account is to free up the system resources used by that account. And, that's what it is used for.
If you're the only one using your computer, you may never feel the need to use the Users tab for account management.
5. Advanced Process Management
Next comes the Details tab which helps you see more about what's running on your computer. In simple words, you can all the running processes in this tab. Here’s what you can find in this tab:
- PID (Process ID): Every process in Windows gets a unique number called a Process ID (PID). It’s like an identification tag for processes, useful for advanced process management.
- Process Name: This column shows the name of the program or service, currently running. It helps in knowing the name of the app or service belonging to a specific process.
- User Name: Here, you get to know the Windows account that created or spawned the process. It helps in identifying if multiple users or system accounts are running processes if your system is part of a network or is shared among several users.
- CPU Usage: As the name implies, this column shows how much CPU's processing power is used by the process. High usage indicates the process is doing something complex or something that requires high CPU resources.
- Memory Usage: This column displays the amount of RAM each process is using. Big applications doing complex jobs like video rendering may take a huge amount of memory.
- Status: Here, you can see if the process is in a "Running" or "Suspended" state. Latter means it’s not using the CPU power, but still occupies memory.
- UAC Virtualization: This column simply indicates if UAC is applied or applicable to this process or not.
Advanced Options
Now. let's check some of the advanced task management actions we can perform in this tab.
I've deliberately not covered all the available options as some of them are related to advanced debugging applicable only to system administrators and programmers.
Whenever you right-click a process in this tab, a context menu appears, and the available options are:
- End task: Kill / Terminate / Stop the process.
- End process tree: Stop the process as well as its child tasks (if any).
- Set priority: Increase or decrease a process's privilege to how many system resources it can use.
- Set affinity: On a multi-core processor system, this setting lets you decide which CPU cores, a process can use.
- Analyze wait chain: This option enables you to check if a process is waiting on another process.
- UAC Virtualization: Through this option, you can turn on or off UAC for the process.
Customizing Details Tab Columns
By default, there are 6 or 7 columns in the Details tab. But, if you're an advanced user and want more information about the processes, you can customize these columns.
There are dozens of columns available with tons of data about the running processes. Here's how to customize these columns.
Right-click on one of the column headers and click the Select columns option from the context menu. It'll open a dialogue box with a list of columns to choose from.
You can check and uncheck the columns you want to include and remove from the tab. Once done, click the OK button.
Customizing Resource Value Format
The statistics displayed in this tab can be customized too. An individual may give preference to a specific format while reading these statistics. Here's how to customize it.
Right-click on one of the statistics column headers. A context menu will appear. Go to the Resource values submenu and select the resource whose data format you want to change.
For example, in the example shown above, we're changing memory consumption to be shown in MBs rather than a percentage. It's a more human-friendly format.
Use Cases of the Details Tab
Following are some of the best uses of this important task manager tab.
- Fix Performance Issues: This is the best place ('Details' tab) to find resource-hogging processes. You can watch both the CPU and RAM consumption of the processes—in this tab.
- Manage System Resources: Advanced users can also fine-tune certain properties of the running processes to improve the system performance. For example, the priority of a less important process can be changed to relinquish some of the resources captured by it.
- Monitoring: Once again, advanced users can also use this tab to spot any suspicious processes currently running on your system.
In summary, the Details tab can be used both to see the resource distribution among the processes as well as to troubleshoot performance-related issues.
6. Service Management
Another important section is the Services tab where you can see, start, and stop all the running services. It's often used by advanced users who are familiar with the running services.
Almost all of these services run in the background without any visual interface.
Right-click on any service and select the desired option from the context menu to start, stop, or restart the service. Make sure, you know about the service before attempting to change its current status.
Stopping an essential service may destabilize your system. So, be careful!
Conclusion
The Windows Task Manager is a helpful and powerful tool for taking care of your computer. With some practice, you can learn to use it well.
It lets you check how your system is performing, manage the programs that are running, control which programs start when you turn on your computer, and more. Be careful when using it because using it incorrectly can make your system unstable.
