We often use to-do lists, notes and other task management software to organize, record and optimize our daily routine but one of the most important platforms where we spend significant amounts of our time is the Personal Computer. Microsoft Windows always comes with an easy to use Task Manager that allows you to achieve the same goal by analyzing a list of tasks and processes along with the system consumption information. The importance of Task Manager was often realized when the system would get very slow while some of the programs became unresponsive. The Ctrl+Alt+Del keys would always save us in such scenarios and when the explorer stops responding, all you need is to create a New Task with the identity explorer.exe. The End Process and End Process Tree have always been a life-saver for both the usual and the expert users of the computer. But the Task Manager was never an all-in-one solution and you would often had to rely on third party tools to get a better picture of the system resource consumption, startup management, tweaks and optimizations. With Windows 8, the new Task Manager is a comprehensive solution for both the novice as well as the advanced users of the operating system. This post will show you how life has been made simpler by this powerful system tool.

The Windows 8 Task Manager organizes system resources in four categories: CPU, Memory, Disk and Network while the tasks in terms of Apps and Background processes. Each instance of the application or process is organized as a branch of the root while the number of branches or instances are mentioned in brackets. To eliminate all instances of an app, simply right click and select End Process for the respective entry. You can also analyze which entry is using how much of your system resources.

Task Manager 1

In addition, the App history tab allows you to go through a list of recently used apps with the respective CPU Time, Network Usage and update statuses. Click the Delete Usage History option if you want a clean slate.

Task Manager App History

The Performance tab is an informative and a graphical overview of how your system is managing the workload and which aspect needs upgrading. You can also access the Open Resource Monitor from this tab.

Task Manager Performance

You can organize and speed up the system startup by analyzing the details within the Startup tab. Note the Last BIOS time, if it is greater than 7 seconds, you might want to clear up the list as per your requirement.

Task Manager Startup tab