Windows 8: 7 Tips To Get The Most Out Of The New Task Manager [Picked]

The Windows Task Manager actually needs no introduction. Since older versions of the system, it provides a way of visualizing the processes and active programs on your computer, allowing you to make a series of operations related to them (or even close them when needed). Task Manager has been one of the most useful default tools since Windows XP. It let’s you keep an eye on system performance and application behavior helping you to further optimize your system. Although it stayed almost the same on Windows 7 as it was in Windows XP, Task Manager has been rejuvenated in Windows 8 adding many powerful features and new tools. Now it let’s you check impacts of startup programs and allow you to disable any of them, visualize hardware resource usage and many other things. Below we have selected some tips that can help you when using the tool.

Opening the Task Manager

There are several ways of opening Task Manager. You should already know some of them. You can just Right Click on the taskbar from Desktop and select Start Task Manager or you can use CTRL +ALT + DELETE and select Task Manager. New way of opening task manager in Windows 8 is to type Manager from the Metro Start Screen and select Task Manager.

Additionally, you can run task manager for Run window too. Use the Windows key + R shortcut to open the Run window and type taskmgr.exe. Regardless of the way you choose, the result is always the same – opens the powerful Task Manager.

Now, the first time you open the Task Manager, it will probably display a small screen with minimal information. Just click on More details from here to open the full Task Manager.

Uptime

Although this is not any important information, you may be curious to know how long your system is running. To do this, go to Performance tab and click on CPU. See that uptime is displayed below the processing information.

Add information columns

By default, Task Manager displays some columns with data for processes running on the computer. If you want, you can add extra information such as the type of the process, the command line or the supplier name. For this, go to Process tab and right click on any of the headers (such as Name). Then add any new information columns as you need.

So all you need to do is select the alternative for which you want to add the extra column in the Processes window. Additionally, you can also switch resource values display mode between Values and Percentages.

View performance of processors

Currently, several people have computers with processors that have more than one core. Similarly, the applications already have support for distributing the execution of the processing units, allowing a higher performance from the CPU. Through the Task Manager, you can see if this is really happening.

So, in Performance tab, click on CPU. As a default, you see the performance measurement as a single unit, and to change it to display per processor, click on the right mouse button over the graph, choose Change graph to and select Logical Processors.

There you go! Now you can see the use of each of the processor cores in the system individually. On the older versions of Windows OS, you would have to use Third-Party tools such as CPU-Z to view this information.

Impact of Startup programs

Overtime you use your computer, you will install many software and some of them would startup automatically when the Windows starts. Like, Antivirus tool, Hardware Drivers, Modem Driver and many other tools. The problem is that often you get to have a slow boot process (taking a long time to boot) because of this startup programs. Through the Task Manager, you may now know what the impact of individual applications that start with the OS. To view this information, simply go to the Startup tab and check the level detailed in the column Startup impact column for each of the applications listed.

You can disable any of those application from starting up with the system by Right Clicking on the application and selecting Disable. It is a great feature of Windows 8 since you already know that many useless Startup programs is one of the reasons why you computer is getting slow.

Faster updates

As a standard, the information available on the Performance tab are only updated in a 60 seconds time span. If you want to make this update faster or slower, you can click the View from the menu tab, and choose any one from the Update Speed.

If you select High, the update range is increased to 30 seconds, while Low makes this period turn to 4 minutes.

Summary view

Another function which is quite interesting (might not be very important though you can use it alternative of Desktop Gadgets to monitor performance) is View summary. When you activate it, you can get a compact window showing the performance of the processor, memory, hard disk and network in place to add whatever you want from your desktop. To do this, go to Performance tab and click the right mouse button on any of the meters and choose View summary.

Now you can drag the window to any place it deems most appropriate in the screen, and can monitor system performance from anywhere.

Details of the Internet connection

The Task Manager also provides details on your internet connection. To enable this feature, go to Performance, find the network used (it can get the data connections for both wireless and cable communication), click with the right mouse button over the graph and select View network details.

That done, a new window shows various detailed information about your connection.

Now, you met several interesting features available from the new Windows Task Manager.Hopefully they can help you while using the computer. Do you have any more interesting tips about Windows 8 Task Manager or any query regarding this article? Don’t forget to leave a comment here.