First Impression of the New Task Manager
It hardly bears mentioning that Windows 8 is vastly different than previous versions of Windows. While brand new features like the Start screen and Charms bar get all the attention, there’s a lot more worth talking about. Windows 8 has overhauled a lot of basic features that have been around for years; one such feature is the Task Manager. It’s been given new tabs, new features and a new look that elevates it from a basic tool to a resource monitoring powerhouse.
Curious to try it out? You have a few options for opening the Task Manager:
Before you open this revamped tool for the first time, understand that your first glance will be underwhelming. Don’t let that color your impression though. By default, the new Task Manager opens in the compact mode seen above.
This new view is much small than the full-sized tool and displays only what apps are currently running. This replaces the simple Applications tab that was the opening tab of Windows 7’s Task Manager. From here you can easily switch between open desktop applications as well as modern apps. You can also easily close any programs - desktop or modern - that you no longer need open. If you need to do anything else, click or tap “More details.”
The Processes Tab
After expanding the Task Manager to its full-size, the first tab you’ll see is Processes. Savvy users will notice a lot of information previously found on this tab is missing. Don’t worry, it’s all still available, it’s just been moved.
Rather than providing finite details like the old Processes tab (that work is now done by the Details tab), this new tab seeks to provide basic, but useful information in a convenient way.
Its first task is to show you what’s running and it does this well. Rather than displaying a simple alphabetical list of processes, it has a tree view that shows which processes are running under others, allowing you to get a better picture of how everything relates. Of course you can still reorder the list alphabetically or in order by resource usage, the choice is yours.
The second task the Processes tab undertakes is to show you how much of your system resources each process is utilizing. While it provides the numbers in a similar column layout to previous versions of the Task Manager, this new version also colors each cell depending upon its value. If a process is chewing up a large percentage of a given resource, the cell for that resource will be a dark color, for minimal use it will be a much lighter color.
This may seem purely decorative, but it’s extremely useful. If you’re experiencing a slow-down you can flip open this tab and quickly scroll through the list. Your eye will immediately be drawn to the darker cells showing you what’s causing the bottleneck.
You don’t even need to know which resource is clogged be it CPU, memory, disk or network.
The Performance Tab
The Windows 8 Performance tab combines the Performance and Networking tabs of previous versions. Not only does it aggregate the information previously spread over two tabs, but it adds a ton of new functionality. Rather than two simple graphs and a chart of data, you now have a list of resources with small graphs beside each list item:
Selecting a resource opens its full-sized graph and a chart that displays a ton of information about its current usage.
You also have the option to display a summary view that shrinks down the window showing only miniature graphs for each monitored resource. This view allows you to check for spikes in real-time without sacrificing too much screen space.
The App History Tab
The App History tab is brand new for Windows 8. It’s the place to go when you want to see what apps have been using over a long period of time. By default, only the modern Windows 8 apps you install through the Windows Store are listed, but you can select “Show history for all processes” from the Options menu to show usage for all programs on your computer.
Desktop users will see this tab as more of an interesting data dump but mobile users may find it a life saver.
From here they can tell what apps are consuming network data and CPU time. For a user with a cap on their data plan, apps running away with data can cost them money. Apps that tend to hog CPU cycles will also drain a mobile battery fast enough to cause problems.
If any apps are shown by this tab to be a resource hog, you can easily uninstall it, change its settings or turn it off to prevent issues.
The Startup Tab
This tab is arguably the most exciting addition to the Windows 8 Task Manager. From here you can see the list of applications set to run automatically when your computer starts up. You’ll also notice a determination of how large an impact each app will have on your startup times.
From here you can monitor the list and disable any items that aren’t essential to have running at all times or that simply aren’t worth the hit to startup times.
Keeping track of this tab will ensure you have a snappy startup even as your computer ages.
The Users Tab
The Users tab is similar to its predecessor; it’s just been given a major power boost. Rather than simply showing you which users are logged in to the system, it also shows you all of the processes that are running under their account.
Similar to the Processes tab, it displays the color map to show you what’s hogging what at a glance. Minimizing a user’s process list will give you an overall idea of how much their account is using.
If you find a user is consuming too much of your system resources, you have options. From this tab you can shut down any process running under any account. You can also simply log out the offending user, ending their usage all together.
Remember the detailed information missing from the Processes tab we discussed earlier? The Details tab is where you’ll find it. This tab has a simple task; it displays a ton of information. Nothing special, fancy or new, it just lays out everything you’d need to know about the processes running on your system.
By default you’ll see the information columns you’d expect, Process name, CPU, Memory and so on.
That’s all useful information, but it’s available on other tabs we’ve covered already. The uniqueness of this tab comes in when you right-click a column header and click or tap “Select columns.” On this list you’ll find a huge amount of data points you can add to the display to provide whatever information you need.
Of all the tabs in the Task Manager, this is the only one that really hasn’t changed a bit since Windows 7. It simply displays the various services running on your system and displays their status; running or stopped. You can also start or stop Services from here.
If you want to do anything more involved than starting or stopping a service, you’ll need to click or tap “Open services” from the bottom of the tab.
This opens the admin tool you’d need to change any settings or properties or to read detailed descriptions of each service.
It hardly bears mentioning that Windows 8 is vastly different than previous versions of Windows. While brand new features like the Start screen and Charms bar get all the attention, there’s a lot more worth talking about. Windows 8 has overhauled a lot of basic features that have been around for years; one such feature is the Task Manager. It’s been given new tabs, new features and a new look that elevates it from a basic tool to a resource monitoring powerhouse.
Curious to try it out? You have a few options for opening the Task Manager:
- Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and select “Task Manager”
- Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc
- Right-click or long press the taskbar and click or tap “Task Manager”
- Search “Task Manager” from the Search Charm and select it from the results
Before you open this revamped tool for the first time, understand that your first glance will be underwhelming. Don’t let that color your impression though. By default, the new Task Manager opens in the compact mode seen above.
This new view is much small than the full-sized tool and displays only what apps are currently running. This replaces the simple Applications tab that was the opening tab of Windows 7’s Task Manager. From here you can easily switch between open desktop applications as well as modern apps. You can also easily close any programs - desktop or modern - that you no longer need open. If you need to do anything else, click or tap “More details.”
The Processes Tab
After expanding the Task Manager to its full-size, the first tab you’ll see is Processes. Savvy users will notice a lot of information previously found on this tab is missing. Don’t worry, it’s all still available, it’s just been moved.
Rather than providing finite details like the old Processes tab (that work is now done by the Details tab), this new tab seeks to provide basic, but useful information in a convenient way.
Its first task is to show you what’s running and it does this well. Rather than displaying a simple alphabetical list of processes, it has a tree view that shows which processes are running under others, allowing you to get a better picture of how everything relates. Of course you can still reorder the list alphabetically or in order by resource usage, the choice is yours.
The second task the Processes tab undertakes is to show you how much of your system resources each process is utilizing. While it provides the numbers in a similar column layout to previous versions of the Task Manager, this new version also colors each cell depending upon its value. If a process is chewing up a large percentage of a given resource, the cell for that resource will be a dark color, for minimal use it will be a much lighter color.
This may seem purely decorative, but it’s extremely useful. If you’re experiencing a slow-down you can flip open this tab and quickly scroll through the list. Your eye will immediately be drawn to the darker cells showing you what’s causing the bottleneck.
You don’t even need to know which resource is clogged be it CPU, memory, disk or network.
The Performance Tab
The Windows 8 Performance tab combines the Performance and Networking tabs of previous versions. Not only does it aggregate the information previously spread over two tabs, but it adds a ton of new functionality. Rather than two simple graphs and a chart of data, you now have a list of resources with small graphs beside each list item:
- CPU
- Memory
- Disk
- Ethernet
- Wi-Fi
Selecting a resource opens its full-sized graph and a chart that displays a ton of information about its current usage.
You also have the option to display a summary view that shrinks down the window showing only miniature graphs for each monitored resource. This view allows you to check for spikes in real-time without sacrificing too much screen space.
The App History Tab
The App History tab is brand new for Windows 8. It’s the place to go when you want to see what apps have been using over a long period of time. By default, only the modern Windows 8 apps you install through the Windows Store are listed, but you can select “Show history for all processes” from the Options menu to show usage for all programs on your computer.
Desktop users will see this tab as more of an interesting data dump but mobile users may find it a life saver.
From here they can tell what apps are consuming network data and CPU time. For a user with a cap on their data plan, apps running away with data can cost them money. Apps that tend to hog CPU cycles will also drain a mobile battery fast enough to cause problems.
If any apps are shown by this tab to be a resource hog, you can easily uninstall it, change its settings or turn it off to prevent issues.
The Startup Tab
This tab is arguably the most exciting addition to the Windows 8 Task Manager. From here you can see the list of applications set to run automatically when your computer starts up. You’ll also notice a determination of how large an impact each app will have on your startup times.
From here you can monitor the list and disable any items that aren’t essential to have running at all times or that simply aren’t worth the hit to startup times.
Keeping track of this tab will ensure you have a snappy startup even as your computer ages.
The Users Tab
The Users tab is similar to its predecessor; it’s just been given a major power boost. Rather than simply showing you which users are logged in to the system, it also shows you all of the processes that are running under their account.
Similar to the Processes tab, it displays the color map to show you what’s hogging what at a glance. Minimizing a user’s process list will give you an overall idea of how much their account is using.
If you find a user is consuming too much of your system resources, you have options. From this tab you can shut down any process running under any account. You can also simply log out the offending user, ending their usage all together.
Remember the detailed information missing from the Processes tab we discussed earlier? The Details tab is where you’ll find it. This tab has a simple task; it displays a ton of information. Nothing special, fancy or new, it just lays out everything you’d need to know about the processes running on your system.
By default you’ll see the information columns you’d expect, Process name, CPU, Memory and so on.
That’s all useful information, but it’s available on other tabs we’ve covered already. The uniqueness of this tab comes in when you right-click a column header and click or tap “Select columns.” On this list you’ll find a huge amount of data points you can add to the display to provide whatever information you need.
Of all the tabs in the Task Manager, this is the only one that really hasn’t changed a bit since Windows 7. It simply displays the various services running on your system and displays their status; running or stopped. You can also start or stop Services from here.
If you want to do anything more involved than starting or stopping a service, you’ll need to click or tap “Open services” from the bottom of the tab.
This opens the admin tool you’d need to change any settings or properties or to read detailed descriptions of each service.