Windows 7 and Vista Task Manager – A Complete Guide
Posted – in: MaintainWindows gives us a great way to see what is going on inside the PC in real time. A quick glance shows which programs are running and how much memory and CPU power they are using. Very similar to Vista’s Task Manager, Windows 7 gives us more features than XP and Windows 2000 allowed us. Let’s get in there and have a look at it.
Ways to start the Task Manager..
- Right click on your Taskbar at the bottom of the screen and choose Start Task Manager
- Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. This only brings up a menu; it doesn’t force a reboot these days
- Use the keyboard shortcut for it – Ctrl+Shift+Esc
- From the run dialog (Windows key + R), then type taskmgr and press enter
- From the Start menu. Hit the Windows key alone and type “taskm” Before bothering with the “gr” at the end, Windows finds it instantly. Either choose taskmgr.exe or there is also an option to “View running processes with Task Manager”
A quick tip for the first time you open Task Manager – go to the options menu and un-tick “Always on Top”. This always bugs me on a fresh install of Windows.
Here’s what Task Manager looks like
You get the normal menu bar along the top edge offering a few options.
Under that you have 6 tabs. Shown is the performance tab, giving an overview of the processor and memory usage.
Task Manager is a great tool for me when I go to fix other people’s computers. To start with, Task Manager is always installed, so Internet or not, I can always use it. Next, you can see so much about what is going wrong with a computer, you barely need anything else to diagnose problems.
See the next few posts for more details on getting the most from the Windows 7 Task Manager
Tags: cpu power, memory usage, running processes, task manager windows, taskmgr, Windows, Windows 7