Most users run the Task Manager program when a software is locked to completely close and reopen the software.
Although it is good to use Windows Task Manager in this way, this tool has other useful and profound features.
Task Manager has made great strides since Windows 7 and is one of the most powerful tools in the Microsoft Windows operating system. Let’s take a look at the best Task Manager tricks in Windows 10:
1- How to execute Task Manager quickly
There are several ways you can run the Task Manager tool. As you know, pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del at the same time opens a security screen and then you can open Task Manager; But this method is very slow.
If you want to use the mouse instead of the keyboard; Just right-click on an empty spot in the taskbar and select Task Manager.
There is another interesting shortcut to run the Task Manager in the Power User menu. Right-click the Start key or press Win + X, and then select Task Manager. This trick can be performed with both the mouse and the keyboard.
Be sure to click on More details after opening the Task Manager tool to see more details.
2- Finding reasons to lock programs
As mentioned above; The most common reason for opening the Task Manager window is to uninstall a blocked application. The next time an app was locked; You can use the Task Manager to analyze some of its status. It may not even have a program locked but it works very slowly. Here, too, you can check the reasons with Task Manager.
Destroying an application causes data loss. The best way is to wait a while and see if this program automatically comes out of the lock. This is where the Analyze Wait Chain feature comes in handy. This feature tells you that a process is waiting to be processed by another process and can detect the reasons why an application is locked.
Go to the Details tab and find the program or process you want to check. Right-click on it and click Analyze wait chain to see more details. If this application is waiting for other processes; You will see them in the window that opens.
3- Restart Windows Explorer
The Windows Explorer process is responsible for many elements of the Windows graphical interface, such as the taskbar, file explorer, the Start menu, and so on. If you encounter a problem with one of these elements; Your first thought is to restart your computer; Although this solution works, it is easier to restart Windows Explorer.
To do this, find Windows Explorer on the Processes tab of the Task Manager tool. Right-click on it and click Restart to remove a corrupted task and run it again. You will notice that the taskbar and other elements of Windows disappear and become unstable for a moment and return to their original state.
4- Monitor efficiency and resource consumption
Task Manager has several tools for effective monitoring of system performance and resource allocation. To see these, go to the Performance tab. When you enter this tab; Note the following:
View graphs
In the left sidebar, you will see sections for displaying the CPU graph, memory, disk, graphics card, and Internet. Just click on any of these charts to see them right away. If you do not want to see all these graphs together or display too many details and the large open window Task Manager interferes with your other tasks; Right-click on a graph and select Summary View.
Copy error detection information
By selecting each source and right-clicking on the graph displayed and selecting Copy, you can put a picture of the situation on your clipboard. You can copy this image to any software, including Notepad, and then share it online on online forums to troubleshoot the system.
Access to useful details
Each of these sources contains very useful detailed information. For example, in the CPU section, you can see the CPU base speed, Up Time, or the number of processes running on the CPU. In the memory section you can see the number of slots and in the Disk section you can see the read and write speeds.
Open Resource Monitor
If you still need more details about any of the system hardware resources; You can click the Open Resource Monitor option at the bottom of the page to open a new window and display all the other detailed information here. This information is usually for professional users and hardware professionals, and ordinary users need it less.
5- Online search for suspicious processes
Sometimes in Task Manager we encounter suspicious processes that have strange names. Most of the time, these processes are legal, but it is wise if there are cases that did not exist before; Check them out.
Windows can help you with this. Right-click on any process and select the Search online command. You will see that the Bing search engine is opened in your browser and the name of the selected process or application is also searched in it.
The results displayed will help you understand if the process is dangerous or legal.
6- Add more columns for More Details
By default, the Task Manager tool displays only a few columns in the Processes tab. While these columns cover the most important details, you can add several more columns with just one right-click on the header section. These columns include:
Type: Shows us a process, including an application, a background process, or a Windows process.
Publisher: Shows the developer of each process.
Process name: Displays similar letters or the executable name of a process. You may have seen these letters in Windows 7 and are familiar with them.
Everyone may like some of these columns and find them useful. The Process Name column is especially useful; Because it helps to find and disable suspicious programs and processes sooner.
Note that you can also add additional columns to the Startup section to make system troubleshooting easier.
7- Change the amount and percentage
When reviewing processes in the Processes tab, the CPU column displays values as a percentage, but you can substitute numeric values for percentages for the other three columns.
Sometimes you need to know exactly how much RAM a program takes up, and sometimes it is better to display a percentage to measure resource usage. For example, for a program, 2% of RAM is 50 MB. You need to see which one gives you the best perspective.
To convert percentages to real values; Right-click on each process and go to the Resource values submenu and select the Values option after selecting the desired hardware source. To do the opposite and convert the value to a percentage, the Percents option must be selected.
8- Managing Windows applications
Task Manager is not the best Windows management tool, but it has some useful tricks and options for you. To access these features, you must click on the arrow on the left side of each application to display all its open processes. Not all programs have these features and you should try which ones can be used and which ones are not!
When you right-click on the main program; You will see some of these options:
Switch to: puts the selected program in front of you and Task Manager goes to the taskbar.
Bring to front: puts the selected program in front of you, but Task Manager does not close and is still open as a window.
Minimize: Closes the program and takes it to the taskbar.
Maximize: Puts the program in front of you.
End Task: Closes the process completely in Windows.
9- Open the location of the program file
Need to know the location of a program’s files? There are many reasons why we sometimes need to go to the configuration files and install an application.
Most of the time we look for program files through File Explorer, but it requires a lot of clicks. If the program has already been run; Task Manager can easily take you to a program’s file storage.
Just right-click on a program process and select Open File Location. Go straight to the folder that contains the executable files of that process.
This trick lets you quickly find the saved location of an application file, background process, Windows software, and more.
10 – Set task manager options
To improve your user experience with the Task Manager and work cleaner and easier with this tool, you can go to the Options menu and click Always on top so that the window of this tool is always displayed on all other windows. In this case, you can manually shrink the task manager window and send it to the taskbar.
If you go to the Set default tab option in this section; You can select one of the Task Manager tabs as the default tab so that this tab is displayed each time you run this tool.
You can also speed up or slow down the refresh rate from the View menu.
In short, the Task Manager tool may be advanced for professional users of an application, but it is complete for ordinary users and can provide many capabilities and features. You can control everything with Task Manager; Monitor all system resources and processes and track every program.