Task Manager

The Windows Task Manager is a powerful tool packed with useful information, from your system’s overall resource usage to detailed statistics about each process. This guide explains every feature and technical term in the Task Manager.

This article focuses on Windows 10’s Task Manager, although much of this also applies to Windows 7. Microsoft has dramatically improved the Task Manager since the release of Windows 7.

The Task Manager’s Tabs Explained  

•  Processes: A list of running applications and background processes on your system along with CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU, and other resource usage information.
• Performance: Real-time graphs showing total CPU, memory, disk, network, and GPU resource usage for your system. You’ll find many other details here, too, from your computer’s IP address to the model names of your computer’s CPU and GPU.
•  App History: Information about how much CPU and network resources apps have used for your current user account. This only applies to new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps—in other words, Store apps—and not traditional Windows desktop apps (Win32 applications.)
• Startup: A list of your startup programs, which are the applications Windows automatically starts when you sign into your user account. You can disable startup programs from here, although you can also do that from Settings > Apps > Startup.
• Users: The user accounts currently signed into your PC, how much resources they’re using, and what applications they’re running.
• Details: More detailed information about the processes running on your system. This is basically the traditional “Processes” tab from the Task Manager on Windows 7.
• Services: Management of system services. This is the same information you’ll find in services.msc, the Services management console.

Task Manager Menu Options

There are also a few useful options in the Task Manager’s menu bar: 

•  File > Run New Task: Launch a program, folder, document, or network resource by providing its address. You can also check “Create this task with administrative privileges” to launch the program as Administrator.
•  Options > Always on Top: The Task Manager window will always be on top of other windows while this option is enabled.
• Options > Minimize on Use: The Task Manager will be minimized whenever you right-click a process and select “Switch To.” Despite the odd name, that’s all this option does.
• Options > Hide When Minimized: The Task Manager will stay running in the notification area (system tray) when you click the minimize button if you enable this option.
• View > Refresh Now: Immediately refresh the data displayed in the Task Manager.
• View > Update Speed: Choose how frequently the data displayed in the Task Manager is updated: High, Medium, Low, or Paused. With Paused selected, the data isn’t updated until you select a higher frequency or click “Refresh Now.”
• View > Group By Type: With this option enabled, processes on the Processes tab are grouped into three categories: Apps, Background Processes, and Windows Processes. With this option disabled, they’re shown mixed in the list.
• View > Expand All: Expand all the process groups in the list. For example, Google Chrome uses multiple processes, and they’re shown combined into a “Google Chrome” group. You can expand individual process groups by clicking the arrow to the left of their name, too.
• View > Collapse All: Collapse all the process groups in the list. For example, all Google Chrome processes will just be shown under the Google Chrome category.

Viewing Performance Information

The Performance tab shows real-time graphs displaying the usage of system resources like CPU, memory, disk, network, and GPU. If you have multiple disks, network devices, or GPUs, you can see them all separately.

You’ll see small graphs in the left pane, and you can click an option to see a larger graph in the right pane. The graph shows resource usage over the last 60 seconds.

In addition to resource information, the Performance page shows information about your system’s hardware. Here are just some things the different panes show in addition to resource usage:

• CPU: The name and model number of your CPU, its speed, the number of cores it has, and whether hardware virtualization features are enabled and available. It also shows your system’s “uptime,” which is how long your system has been running since it last booted up.
• Memory: How much RAM you have, its speed, and how many of the RAM slots on your motherboard are used. You can also see how much of your memory is currently filled with cached data. Windows calls this “standby.” This data will be ready and waiting if your system needs it, but Windows will automatically dump the cached data and free up space if it needs more memory for another task.
• Disk: The name and model number of your disk drive, its size, and its current read and write speeds.
• Wi-Fi or Ethernet: Windows shows a network adapter’s name and its IP addresses (both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses) here. For Wi-Fi connections, you can also see the Wi-Fi standard in use on the current connection—for example, 802.11ac.
• GPU: The GPU pane shows separate graphs for different types of activity—for example, 3D vs. video encoding or decoding. The GPU has its own built-in memory, so it also shows GPU memory usage. You can also see the name and model number of your GPU here and the graphics driver version it’s using. You can monitor GPU usage right from the Task Manager without any third-party software.

You can also turn this into a smaller window if you’d like to see it on screen at all times. Just double-click anywhere in the empty white space in the right pane, and you’ll get a floating, always-on-top window with that graph. You can also right-click the graph and select “Graph Summary View” to enable this mode.

Working with Services

The Services tab shows a list of the system services on your Windows system. These are background tasks that Windows runs, even when no user account is signed in. They’re controlled by the Windows operating system. Depending on the service, it may be automatically started at boot or only when necessary.

The Service pane’s columns are:

• Name: A short name associated with the service
• PID: The process identifier number of the process associated with the service.
• Description: A longer name that provides more information about what the service does.
• Status: Whether the service is “Stopped” or “Running.”
• Group: The group the service is in, if applicable. Windows loads one service group at a time at startup. A service group is a collection of similar services that are loaded as a group.

For more information about these services, click the “Open Services” link at the bottom of the window. 

Process Explorer: A More Powerful Task Manager

If the built-in Windows Task Manager isn’t powerful enough for you, we recommend Process Explorer. This is a free program from Microsoft; it’s part of the SysInternals suite of useful system tools.