Using Windows Task Manager

Anyone who has had their Windows system freeze has likely opened up task-manager. It is a powerful tool for seeing what your system in doing at any given time and can be used to diagnosis system slow down and kill processes.

How to start Task Manager

Press Ctrl Shift Escape

Right click taskbar and select Task Manager

Search the menu for Task Manager

Press the Windows Key + r and run taskmgr.exe

Why use the Task Manager

Many people use the Task Manager to kill processes but in Windows 10 it can provide insight into your system performance from both the hardware perspective as well as which executables are utilizing system resources. This can be a vital starting point in seeing what a system is doing.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

Most people who use the task manager need to end a process to stop a frozen application. This is further emphasized by the default view for task manager including a very simple list the users applications and the End Task button.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

By opening the more details you will see more detailed information about each application open, children processes, as well as system resources being used.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

The performance tab shows resources available and graphs their usage over time. On a slowing system this tab can be very insightful to the systems current bottle neck.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

App history provides insight to commonly run applications as well as application using system resources over the previous 30 days. I personally don’t really use or trust this section as my messenger has use ~392 years of CPU time. But its a indicator that may point you to a application taxing your system.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

In a post Windows 7 world, the startup section has moved here. In Windows 7 startup can be accessed via the msconfig utility but in Windows 10 has moved to Task Manager. Useful for disabling applications you don’t want to automatically start. It’s pretty safe to disable almost all of these to improve boot time and free up more system resources. Some of these may occasionally get flipped back on with system updates so its worth checking this from time to time. So if your determined to make something not start up there is a few more places to check.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

Provides insight into system resources used by separate users. By clicking the down arrow it would display processes associated with that user. My system has one user on it so its not terribly useful but on a multi user system you can see processes of other users and disconnect them from resources.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

The devil is in the details and this is the section I prefer when if I’m going to end a task with Task Manager. You see all of process, as well as the user running the process and the PID.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager

The services is similar to the processes but lists the services available on the system, both running and stopped, and allows for managing the background services, convenient as you don’t need to access services to do this.

overview of task manager
overview of task manager