Task Manager in Windows 10, 8 and 7: Functions, Starting and Restoring
Hello everybody!
In this video, I’m going to tell you about Task Manager.
How to start it, what function it has, what processes it shows and how to manage them,
and how to restore Task Manager if it disappeared or if you can’t start it.
In
Windows 8 and 10, Task manager has been completely redesigned in comparison with the older versions.
Even in Windows 8, you could use Task Manager to change startup options, see your IP address
and various charts, manage processes and search for their names online, and do many other
things.
How to start it To start Task Manager, press the key shortcut
Ctrl+Alt+Delete or Ctrl+Shift+Esc, or right-click on the taskbar, or the Start menu to open
it.
If it’s not shown properly When you start it for the first time, Task
Manager can open in a reduced window showing only the programs launched by the current
user.
To switch it to extended view, click on “More details” to view all the information.
Tabs and processes overview This way, it shows the menu and a set of tabs.
In the first tab, Processes, you will see the list of all running programs, applications,
background processes and Windows processes.
A process is a program which is running at the moment, with all of its elements: addressing
space, globals, registers, stack memory, opened files and so on.
Next to every process you will see the information on how much of the computer’s resources
it is using, that is, how much load it puts on the central processing unit, memory, hard
disk and network.
It gives you a good picture of what process is loading the system too much, and you can
control what’s happening.
If necessary, you can always disable it by highlighting it and clicking on “End Task.”
Or, you can right-click on it.
In the window that opens, you’ll see some more functions except the one for ending the
task.
As you can see, a process can be expanded, and you’ll see what services are connected
with it, open file location which is convenient when you search and remove viruses, you can
search online for such process, open its properties to view information and modify some settings
- for example, security settings, or try solving compatibility issues.
Another function here is to create dump file - which means dumping all the stuff from the
RAM which is related to this process into a file.
Choose to show resources in percents or values.
In this tab, you can also add extra columns by right-clicking on one of them and then
selecting what you want to add: Type, Status, Publisher and so on.
In the next tab, Performance, the information on how the computer’s resources are used
is represented graphically; you can see the data by clicking on the element you are interested
in - the CPU, Memory, Disk or Ethernet.
By opening Resource Monitor, you will get more detailed information about it.
The tab “App history” show when and how long a certain application worked in your
system, and how much resources it consumed.
To view data on all applications, go to options to check the setting “Show history for all
processes.”
The next tab is “Startup”.
In this tab you can disable unnecessary applications so that they don’t start with the operating
system and don’t put extra pressure on your computer.
For example, you don’t often use a certain program or don’t use it at all, so it would
be reasonable to remove it from the startup list by clicking on it and then choosing “Disable.”
If you don’t know what this or another program does, you can right-click on it and search
online for more information.
In the tab “Users” you can view the information on the users working with this computer and
if you expand it, you’ll see the processes they started.
You may ask me, why would anyone need this tab?
The matter is that bad guys can get connected to your system by using viral scripts.
If that’s the case, the Users tab in Windows 10 Task Manager will show such attempts.
After that, you will be able to decide if you want to check your computer for viruses.
Watch one of our videos about removing viruses.
Find the link in the description.
The tab “Details” looks very much like the first tab, “Processes,” but it’s
got more functions for management.
When you right-click on a process, you’ll see the option “End task” which I have
already mentioned, and the option “End process tree” will end all tasks connected with
it.
“Set priority” needs no explanation, and “Set affinity” allows using only a part
of the computer’s CPU cores to work on the task.
“Analyze wait chain” lets you unload some tasks from the process that seems frozen instead
of just ending it.
UAC virtualization redirects requests for recording data to other physical folders - other
than those addressed by the program code.
Creating a dump file sends the contents of the RAM related to such process to a special
file.
The option “Go to service (s)” will show you if this process is related to a particular
service, and it opens the next tab, “Services.”
This tab is a simplified way of representing the active services.
Here, you can also stop or restart some components.
Click “Open services” at the bottom of the window if you need to go to an expanded
mode.
Task Manager menu Now let’s talk about Task Manager menu which
is made up of three tabs - File, Options and View.
By clicking on File, you can “Run new task”, and it can help you if File Explorer is gone,
so to restart it, type “explorer.exe” and click OK to have it back.
You can do the same with Win + R. If you hold down the CTRL button and click
on “Run new task,” it will open the command prompt.
There’s no point in explaining other lines in the menu as they are easy to understand.
When Task Manager is gone If you are trying to start Task Manager but
nothing happens, or you can’t find it - in most cases it could be a virus attack (viruses
can disable it), but there are also chances that Task Manager was disabled by another
user or the system administrator.
You can try restoring it in several ways, with Registry Editor, and with Local Group
Policy Editor.
Start the Registry Editor by pressing Win+R and typing “regedit” in the window that
opens.
Then follow this path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System.
If it doesn’t exist, you’ll have to create it.
In the right panel, find the registry key DisableTaskMgr, and change its value to O,
if the current value is 1; do it by right-clicking on it and choosing “Modify.”
Close Registry Editor, and if Task Manager is still disabled, restart the computer.
For the second method, start Local Group Policy Editor by clicking on the Start menu and entering
gpedit.msc.
Then go to User Configuration / Administrative Templates / System / Ctrl+Alt+Delete options
- and open Remove Task Manager.
If the active setting is “Enabled,” Task Manager is blocked, but the default setting
should be “Not Configured,” so change the value and click “Apply.”
Here is another way to unlock it with command prompt; run it as administrator and type the
following command.
REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
If for some reason, command prompt doesn’t start as well, you can create a .bat file
with this code: to do it, create a text file, type this command, and save.
And then change the file extension from .txt to .bat.
If file extensions are not shown, click on View and check the box next to File Name Extensions.
After that, run this file and then restart the computer.
If editing the registry manually is a hard task, you can create a registry file.
To do it, type the following code in the same text document
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
“DisableTaskMgr” =dword:00000000
save and change the extension to .reg, then run it and restart the system.
After that, you can start Task Manager.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
“DisableTaskMgr” =dword:00000000
That is all for now.
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Thank you for watching.
Good luck.