In the Compact view, Task Manager
doesn’t display much detail—it doesn’t even show you tile-based
programs that are in use. But Task Manager is a very rich diagnostic
tool. Among its best uses are determining which programs are resource
hogs, figuring out what’s running on your system, and learning about
how well your components are being used. You can do all these things
through the Processes tab in Task Manager’s Detailed view.
The standout feature of the Processes tab is
the “heat map.” Task Manager color-codes applications and processes to
represent low to high usage rates. The colors make it very easy to spot
which applications or processes are making your system sluggish. Task
Manager uses a set of small programs, called “counters,” that count
various aspects of system performance. This data is collected and
reported in the Processes tab.
While it is generally safe to terminate a
program, terminating background processes and some services can cause
your computer to malfunction. That’s why Windows 8 includes tools to
view properties and search for a name using your browser. These tools
can help you determine whether it is safe to end a process.
Microsoft has put a lot of effort into
changing the arcane programmer-type names in Task Manager into friendly
names. So you now see “Print driver host for applications,” whereas in
Windows 7 you would have seen splwow64.exe.
To open Task Manager’s Detailed view
Open Task Manager, and click the More Details button at the bottom of the window .
Task Manager’s Processes tab displays a “heat map” that shows which applications are using the most resources.
The Detailed view groups windows under their application .
And where you once saw “Synchost” in multiple listings, now Task
Manager groups the Service Host processes into logical groupings and
lists the services by their friendly names .
Task Manager groups application windows.
The enigmatic “Synchost” is finally revealed using friendly names, a commonsense new feature of the Windows 8 Task Manager.
Tip
In the Processes, App History,
Startup, Users, Details, and Services tabs, you can click the column
headers to sort the display by that item.
