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No matter how advanced the operating system there is one thing that has always looked similar for Windows Operating Systems and that is the task manager. Currently it is just a dull grey box which is confusing to read for a user. As computers become more advanced and having more software at our disposal it has become increasingly more common for users to tackle the windows task manager for themselves. In order to make the process easier the task manager has gone through a complete redesign for Windows 8.
Accessing the Task Manager is very easy. You can either do it by pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and accessing the task manager panel that way. Alternatively you can right click on the desktop and click ‘Task Manager’. Once it has opened up you will be able to see it looks incredibly different to the task manager in previous versions of windows, don’t worry however. It is much easier to use.
The default option of the task manager is a very clean, and there is nothing confusing to get in the way. It will list all applications currently running on your computer including desktop apps and windows metro apps. You will be able to close them from here. If you require a bit more depth with your task manager then click the ‘More Details’ option at the bottom of the page.
This more detailed version will add some tabs at the top of the application; I will discuss a few of these later. On your processes page you will now be able to see a very pretty chart detailing how many resources each application is running at a time as well as the strain it is putting on your hard disk driver and network. This is very useful for troubleshooting purposes.
A very useful feature is the ability to right click a process and search online for it. This is useful if you don’t know why a process is running on the system.
The App History tab will enable you to see the historical data for each of the apps that have been run on your computer. You will be able to easily see just how many resources each has consumed in total.
As you can see from the tabs you are now able to add and remove start up programs direct from the task manager. In previous editions of Windows this feature was buried deep within the control panel and was difficult to find for many users. Now you will be able to stop those pesky resource hogging programs from starting up a lot more easily.
If you click the ‘Performance’ tab you will be greeted with very pretty graphs detailing the utilization of your system resource, more specifically your processor, memory, hard drive and network. If the numbers are consistently high then you may need to look into a hardware upgrade or see if there are any programs that are hogging a lot of resources. Your computers IP address will also be displayed on this page.
Hopefully you won’t need to access the task manager very often, but I hope this article has gone a bit of the way towards helping you understand exactly how this brand new system works. I do not expect the task manager to change much between the preview edition and the full release of Windows 8 later in the year.
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I have been obsessed with computers, tech, gadgets and games since the early 1980’s having grown up on the Commodore 64 and Amiga computers.
By day I work in the IT Security Industry and have been in IT for over 20 years. On my spare time I am a Vlogger, Blogger, Streamer, Gadget Reviewer, affiliate marketer, influencer and entertainer. I am also an avid movie fan, TV Show fan, Anime fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.