Questions tagged [task-manager]
Use for questions about the Windows Task Manager utility for managing system processes. Do not use for questions relating to human tasks.
708
questions
88
votes
4
answers
143k
views
Windows using too much RAM, how to diagnose resource hog
I have 16GB of system RAM. On startup with no applications open except the task-manager Windows is using about 3gb of RAM. I looked in the processes tab, but nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. ...
- 1,703
67
votes
5
answers
40k
views
Why are there multiple Chrome instances running even though I only have one window (only one tab) open? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Multiple chrome.exe in Task Manager
In Windows Task Manager it seems that I have multiple Chrome processes running, even though I only have one Chrome window open.
How is ...
- 920
67
votes
4
answers
93k
views
Why are Disk and Network columns disabled in Task Manager in Windows Server 2012?
Compared to Windows 8, Windows 2012's Task Manager has Disk and Network columns disabled.
Why are these columns disabled?
How can one activate them, especially the Network column?
- 910
62
votes
4
answers
49k
views
How to find which tab a particular Chrome process refers to
I often have 6 or 7 separate Chrome windows open, often with 5-10 tabs in each. When I look at Windows Task Manager, I see each chrome.exe process, with some using a large amount of memory. How can ...
- 623
61
votes
3
answers
8k
views
Can I make Ctrl+Alt+Del go directly into the task manager in Windows 7?
I am using Windows 7 and when I press Ctrl+Alt+Del I first go into the welcome screen and only then I can go into the task manager.
I have no use for any other option on this screen, can I change it ...
- 767
60
votes
4
answers
40k
views
How can I determine what process a window belongs to?
Every time I start up windows vista lately, I see a random floating window. It is a tiny little window with no title, and only the resize, maximize and restore buttons. I'd post an image, but I don't ...
- 797
59
votes
3
answers
44k
views
Restore the original task manager after replacing it with the Sysinternals process explorer
After replacing the default Windows task manager with Sysinternals’ process explorer via the Options → Replace task manager menu, how do you undo that action, i.e. restore the original task manager? I’...
- 2,451
57
votes
10
answers
342k
views
How do I open the Windows Task Manager during a Remote Desktop session?
When I press Ctrl-Alt-Delete I can only open the Task Manager for the local PC.
Is there some simple way to open the Task Manager on the remote PC while running Remote Desktop from one Windows XP ...
- 1,131
54
votes
1
answer
70k
views
Why do Resource Monitor and Task Manager's total RAM usage not even remotely add up to the total Physical Memory usage? [duplicate]
I have noticed this on many different Windows machine, on many different occasions: the RAM usage reported by Task Manager or Resource Monitor often seems to add up to an amount which is significantly ...
- 1,007
43
votes
2
answers
56k
views
How do priorities work on task-manager and when should/n't I set this?
I've been setting some processes priority in order to see what it actually happens, but, guess what... Nothing; it all runs the same way...
I found on Google that priorities are not really linked ...
- 584
43
votes
6
answers
69k
views
Why does Windows 7 use the page file when there's free physical RAM?
I am using Windows 7 64 bit with 8G ram. After some use, I feel Windows is getting sluggish. The drive is thrashing. When I look at the resource monitor and disk activity, I see a few instances of use ...
- 11.9k
41
votes
3
answers
19k
views
How do I get back the old Task Manager (from Windows 7) in Windows 10?
There are some improvements in Windows 10 in Task Manager, but they also removed really nice stuff. For example, in the the old Task Manager you could sort the running applications by their path. ...
- 2,101
41
votes
5
answers
16k
views
Can Task Manager show the total memory usage for a group of processes?
Some applications like Google Chrome and TweetDeck show up as several processes in Windows Task Manager. This means that the memory reported in each row is only part of the overall amount used by ...
- 3,060
39
votes
3
answers
93k
views
Task Manager for Firefox (like in Chrome?) [duplicate]
I was looking over Chrome and the task manager feature and really wishing something like this was in Firefox (as i have lots of addons [probably too many] and lots of tabs open). I looked for an addon ...
- 401
38
votes
2
answers
24k
views
What is the secondary CPU Usage Graph line in the Windows 10 Task Manager
I was looking at the task manager in Windows 10 and for the first time noticed a secondary dashed line below the solid? What does this line indicate?
- 500
36
votes
9
answers
226k
views
Run Task Manager as another user (administrator)
Is it possible to run the Windows Task Manager as another user, for example, as an administrator?
Our users run with limited privileges, so it would be helpful if I could use Task Manager as an ...
- 623
36
votes
3
answers
36k
views
Windows 8 task manager: single-core CPU graph only?
On multi-core CPU systems, Windows 7's task manager used to display a separate utilization graph for each core unit:
On Windows 8 the task manager looks much fancier, and yet it shows a single graph ...
- 2,715
34
votes
2
answers
25k
views
Why does the windows 8 task manager seem to freeze?
Several times I've seen the task manager appear frozen in Windows 8. It doesn't update, and generally shows double-digit CPU usage. Closing it and reopening it doesn't usually help, but rebooting ...
- 533
34
votes
2
answers
47k
views
What's the easiest way to save Task Manager's Processes tab as a CSV file?
I want to get the information in the Task Manager's Processes tab into Excel.
I want to do this because I am trying to make an image to deploy to a few workstation and need to see what I should ...
- 23.1k
33
votes
3
answers
79k
views
On Windows, how can I gracefully ask a running program to terminate?
On Unix or Linux, it's easy to gracefully ask a running application to terminate: you send it the SIGTERM signal. If its process ID is 1234, you can simply run kill 1234 or kill -s TERM 1234 or kill ...
33
votes
1
answer
26k
views
What is the "Analyze Wait Chain" in Task Manager?
In Windows 8's Task Manager under the "Details" tab there is a detailed list of every running process in the system.
In the context menu of every process, there is a new menu item called "Analyze ...
- 2,715
32
votes
3
answers
16k
views
Does task manager run as administrator by default on Windows 10?
I was trying to close a non-responsive process, and after the first time I clicked "End Process", nothing happened. So I did it again and this time a window popped up saying "Access is Denied". ...
- 2,922
28
votes
3
answers
10k
views
How do I find the unknown program enabled during Start-Up?
I am using a computer with Windows 10 and, as a normal procedure to reduce the boot time, I accessed the Task Manager and checked what was "Enabled" during the "Start-up".
When I opened that tab, I ...
- 831
28
votes
4
answers
113k
views
What is the RuntimeBroker.exe process in Windows 8?
I was looking through my Task Manager today and saw something called Runtime Broker running:
I've never seen this in previous versions of Windows.
What is it? What does it do?
- 8,197
27
votes
7
answers
78k
views
PID number in Task Manager can't be found
i tried running netstat -o to check what are the connections which are established. I saw two and they have PID numbers. When I checked it in my Task Manager, I couldn't find those PID numbers.
Is ...
- 1,237
26
votes
3
answers
44k
views
How to get the command that invoked a task with tasklist?
The Windows task manager has a column labeled Command Line that shows the command that started the given task, with all the switches and parameters, for example:
test.exe -V -A 127.0.0.1 -P 6062
Now ...
- 1,041
24
votes
13
answers
139k
views
Terminate program that has taken over the screen
I've been using Windows forever, but one thing that has annoyed me is how hard it is to terminate misbehaving full-screen applications. In Linux, I can just switch over to terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and ...
- 371
24
votes
6
answers
216k
views
How to kill tasks in Windows 7 when even Task Manager won't open or respond?
Occasionally one of my computers will get so bogged down that everything locks up, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't work, Task Manager won't open, or they work, but are opening so slowly that it will take hours ...
- 7,561
23
votes
5
answers
50k
views
Tool which finds which process is causing the heavy hard drive activity?
Sometimes my Windows 7 system is accessing the hard drive heavily for several minutes and it slows down the machine considerably.
Is there a tool which tells me which process is causing it? That ...
- 11.9k
23
votes
10
answers
34k
views
Last BIOS time on Task Manager
Can someone tell me what that Last BIOS time is on the upper right corner of the task manager on Windows 8 Pro? Mine has always been 0.0. I guess it is not measuring the BIOS time properly so what can ...
- 1,385
22
votes
2
answers
5k
views
How do I see if a process is running in 32-bit or 64-bit mode in the Windows 8/10 Task Manager?
Previously, I would look in Task Manager for a *32 next to the process name in Task Manager to tell what platform the process is running on:
However, in Windows 8 and 10 (on the details tab) this is ...
- 21.3k
20
votes
4
answers
49k
views
How do I permanently set the affinity of a process?
I have a game that has issues with CPU usage, so one of the fixes is to disable one core out of a quad core cpu. Since everytime I launch the game I have to manually go into the Task Manager and ...
- 1,698
20
votes
5
answers
5k
views
Why doesn't prioritizing processes produce a speed improvement?
I have got 2 applications that are both using a lot of system resources. When I decrease the priority of one in Task Manager, while increasing the other, I don't notice any significant improvement in ...
user201262
20
votes
2
answers
54k
views
How to see usage of each core in Windows 10?
The Performance tab of the Task Manager shows this:
i.e. the CPU usage, and the number of cores (and logical cores) I have available.
Can I get a graph like this for each core to see whether ...
- 683
20
votes
2
answers
8k
views
Does Windows 7 reuse process IDs?
Does Windows 7 reuse process IDs?
The reason I ask this question is due to my experience that Windows XP and Linux never seems to generate process IDs higher than 20–30k. However, my Windows 7 ...
- 275
20
votes
1
answer
9k
views
What is the "Startup impact" column in Task Manager?
Task Manager in Windows 8 has got a new tab called 'Startup'. As I understand, this allows me to control my startup programs. However, the meaning of the column 'Startup impact' is unclear to me:
...
- 2,715
19
votes
1
answer
4k
views
What is the best way to identify what caused a CPU spike?
In Windows Task Manager History I can see that there was a CPU spike and my computer freezes.
And I can see when I sort the view on highest CPU percentage which processes take most of the CPU.
But ...
- 407
19
votes
13
answers
89k
views
How to make windows task manager to show network usage?
I found that Windows 8 Task manager does not show network usage correctly:
As you see, my torrent client downloads at a speed of 1 MB/s, while Windows shows zero.
All adapters are disabled except ...
- 12.8k
18
votes
1
answer
11k
views
What does the leaf symbol in the status column of the task manager mean?
I noticed there is a status column in Windows 10s task manager where some processes have a symbol that looks like a leaf. I have no idea what the symbol could mean. There is no tool tip describing the ...
- 377
17
votes
5
answers
74k
views
How to remove dead items from the Startup tab in Task Manager?
I have a couple of programs in the Startup tab, that after being uninstalled remained there.
In this picture you can see Switcher, which used to launch on startup, remains in the tab after being ...
- 24.8k
17
votes
1
answer
6k
views
Why have my Task Manager Performance tab mini-graphs turned into dots?
In this question, you can see the Task Manager showing mini-graphs for all the metrics on the left (ignore the right arrow; that's germane to the question at the above URL).
Occasionally, Task ...
- 1,845
17
votes
2
answers
14k
views
What are these different kinds of memory usage in Windows 7 task manager?
In Windows 7's task manager, I can select different columns to show. There are a bunch that are related to memory and memory usage, but I'm not sure what it all means.
I have a Dutch installation of ...
- 3,733
16
votes
1
answer
66k
views
Handles vs Threads vs Processes
Is there a difference between a thread and a process?
I am trying to understand the calculations of the system data listed in the performance tab.
Handles: 48097 Threads: 1602 Processes: 99 Up Time: ...
- 395
16
votes
1
answer
22k
views
Why is Windows 7 scheduled task running hidden?
I am migrating a system from XP to Windows 7. I ported a scheduled task that worked fine under XP to the Windows 7 environment by re-creating the job in the new scheduled tasks manager, and calling ...
- 1,588
16
votes
6
answers
19k
views
"Task Manager" addon for Firefox? [closed]
Are there any addons for Firefox that can replicate the performance monitoring of Task Manager in Windows - seeing memory and CPU used - but for all the tabs in the current Firefox session?
I want to ...
- 1,769
16
votes
3
answers
42k
views
taskmgr.exe called with an argument by Windows 7
I noticed when I press Ctrl+Alt+Del and click Task Manager, Windows calls taskmgr.exe /3 as the command. Several websites claim the Task Manager has no command line arguments.
Why does Windows attach ...
- 803
16
votes
3
answers
22k
views
Run task manager (process explorer) as administrator
I have Sysinternals Process Explorer installed as the system's task manager (Win7 64). Since half of the metrics for anything started as service and processes started under other user accounts are ...
- 4,562
15
votes
2
answers
14k
views
Resource monitor for OS X
In Windows, you can get an overview of your computers resources and activities by going into the Task Manager. It also shows which task is consuming the most CPU cycles and RAM.
Is there a similar ...
- 21.3k
15
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Combine GPU calculation power
After Windows 10 Fall Update you see all of your GPUs in the Taskmanager:
When I play a game, only one GPU is used, the other one is idle.
Question: When I reach 100% with my GeForce GTX 760 is it ...
- 261
15
votes
4
answers
17k
views
Kill process after it's been allowed to run for some time
I want to limit the time a grep process command is allowed to run or be alive.
For example. I want to perform the following:
grep -qsRw -m1 "parameter" /var
But before running the grep command I ...
- 539