How to use Task Manager as a Windows admin // Windows Fundamentals // EP 10

Summary

In this episode of Windows Fundamentals, NetworkChuck Academy dives into using Task Manager for Windows administrators. Task Manager is an essential tool that provides insights into your computer's performance, processes, and resource usage. The video covers how to navigate Task Manager, manage processes, and optimize system performance by adjusting startup applications and understanding resource consumption. Key functions include viewing real-time processes, managing user tasks, and monitoring system performance through various tabs such as Processes, Performance, and Startup.

Highlights

• Task Manager is your computer's diary, revealing what's running in real-time! 📔
• Change to dark mode to save your eyes from the brightness. 🌑
• Manage background processes and apps effortlessly with Task Manager. 🛠️
• Use Task Manager to restart essential processes like Windows Explorer. 🔄
• Launch new tasks easily if something crashes. 🚀
• Keep track of resource usage in real-time with Task Manager. 📊
• End unresponsive tasks directly from Task Manager when apps misbehave. ❌
• Optimize startup by disabling apps for quicker boot times. 🚀
• Performance graphs give you a pretty overview of resource usage. 📈
• App History tab shows resource usage over time, which is neat! ⏳

Key Takeaways

• Task Manager is essential for understanding your computer's performance. 💻
• Navigating Task Manager can help you manage processes and optimize system resources. ⚙️
• Remember to disable unnecessary startup apps to speed up your computer's boot time. 🚀

Overview

Task Manager is like your computer's open diary, providing a real-time look into what’s running and how hard your system is working. From apps right in your face to the tons of background processes, Task Manager has them all listed. You can even switch to dark mode to make your experience more eye-friendly!

One of the coolest perks of Task Manager is the ability to each process. If, say, Windows Explorer isn't working, you can just end the task and start it again, bringing everything back to life! The video also shows how you can easily start new tasks or manage existing ones to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Monitoring resource usage is vital, and Task Manager’s performance graphs give a beautiful overview of how things stack up. Plus, by checking out the Startup apps tab, you can decide which apps launch upon startup, ensuring your boot times remain snappy. Task Manager is packed with features and NetworkChuck shows how it's a must-have tool for admins.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Task Manager The chapter introduces the concept of a Task Manager, a tool used to monitor and manage the processes running on a computer. It discusses how to access the Task Manager in Windows through the search bar or by right-clicking the taskbar. The Task Manager provides a view into the computer's current operations, including all ongoing processes and tasks.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Settings and Processes The chapter focuses on understanding the 'Settings and Processes' in a system or application. Initially, there is a need to change the visual settings to dark mode for comfort. The discussion then shifts to the 'Processes' tab, which is divided into 'apps' and 'background processes.' The 'apps' are the active programs visible to the user, such as the Task Manager in this case, whereas 'background processes' run invisibly.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Background Processes and Windows Processes This chapter discusses background and Windows processes, highlighting that many processes run unnoticed by typical users, for example, CTF Loader and DISM Host.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Managing Processes The chapter titled 'Managing Processes' discusses the different types of processes within the Windows operating system, particularly focusing on Windows processes and background processes. Windows processes are crucial as they represent the operating system's core functions, while background processes are additional apps running in the background. The chapter emphasizes understanding and managing these processes, including identifying common ones such as Windows Explorer. The exercise encourages familiarity with the task manager and processes, guiding users to scroll through and recognize various processes, suggesting this can be both enlightening and intimidating for new users.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Launching and Managing Applications The chapter focuses on using Task Manager as a key tool for managing applications on a Windows system. It starts by addressing a common issue where Windows Explorer becomes unresponsive, preventing interactions with desktop icons. The chapter teaches the reader how to use Task Manager to locate the Windows Explorer process and either restart it or end the task. The demonstration highlights the impact of ending this crucial task, emphasizing the significance of Task Manager in troubleshooting and managing system applications effectively.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Performance and Resource Monitoring The chapter emphasizes the use of 'Run New Task' for performance and resource monitoring in Windows. It explains the process of creating new tasks and managing applications like Windows Explorer and Microsoft Edge. It's noted that while you might typically restart applications, there are times when applications might fail, requiring a complete restart. This functionality is highlighted as a useful tool for managing and troubleshooting applications. The chapter encourages practical engagement by walking through processes such as launching applications and ensuring they run in the foreground for effective monitoring.
• 03:00 - 04:00: App History and Startup Apps This chapter explores the functionality of the Task Manager, specifically focusing on its improved display of app processes. The example given is Microsoft Edge, which is not just shown as a background process but as an active app. The Task Manager provides detailed information about how the app is running, including all open components like tabs. When opening new tabs, such as navigating to Google, the Task Manager reflects these processes accurately, showcasing its capability to present a comprehensive view of app performance and operation on the system.
• 04:00 - 05:00: User and Account Management The chapter on 'User and Account Management' discusses the importance and functionality of task manager in monitoring system processes. It highlights how the task manager provides insights into resource usage, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network, for each running process. This information can help diagnose system performance issues, such as system slowdowns. The transcript provides an example scenario where opening multiple tabs in Microsoft Edge increases resource consumption, demonstrating the kind of information task manager can reveal.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Details and Services The chapter discusses the resource consumption, like memory and CPU usage, by having multiple tabs open in a browser. It highlights the advanced features of Windows, such as efficiency modes, which help minimize the resource drain by running apps in the background when they are not actively in use. The efficiency modes aim to save energy and optimize CPU and memory usage. Additionally, the text illustrates how to deal with unresponsive applications, such as Microsoft Edge, during excessive resource loads.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Conclusion The chapter provides guidance on how to effectively close unresponsive applications, specifically Microsoft Edge, using the task manager when standard methods of closing it fail. After highlighting this practical approach, the chapter transitions to discussing the 'Performance' tab in the task manager. It describes the usefulness of this tab in providing an overview of the computer's performance metrics, including CPU, memory, disk, and ethernet usage, thereby giving users insight into their system's operational status.

How to use Task Manager as a Windows admin // Windows Fundamentals // EP 10 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 How's your computer doing? Is he stressed out? Overworked? How would you even find that out? Task manager, let me show you here In Windows, I go to Task Manager all the time. You'll see why. Now, how do we get there? A couple of ways I go. First, you can go to the search bar and type in task manager. There it is the app. Or you can right click your task bar right here and say Task manager. It's one of the two options by default. Let's go in there. Task manager. Now task manager's, kind of your view into what your computer is doing right now. Everything it's thinking about everything it's running.
• 00:30 - 01:00 It's like you're looking in as diary real time. Now first before we do anything, we're going to go to settings because this is burning my eyes. Settings down here and we're going to change this to dark mode. Thank you. Okay, back to processes. And that's our first tab here is processes. Processes are, hey, what's running on your computer, what's open? And notice we have two categories. We have apps and we have background processes. Now apps are things you're going to see like bam, right here in your face. Notice we have one open, it's Task manager and it's right here on our face.
• 01:00 - 01:30 The others are things you may not recognize like CTF Loader, DISM, host. You don't have to know all these, but there are things you do recognize. There's Microsoft Edge and you might be going, why is he? I don't see him open down here. Where's he at? Well, when you start up your computer, there are applications that will open up in the background and just run some. You don't want doing that. So we'll talk about in a later episode how to change that behavior. But you can see the background processes definitely outnumber our apps that are working in the foreground. And then even below background processes,
• 01:30 - 02:00 we have Windows processes, 94 of those bad boys. Background processes are more like apps running in the background, whereas Windows processes are like, it's the Windows operating system running. These processes are what's making everything go. One of the main ones you'll see all the time. You scroll down just a bit and this is going to be a fun exercise for you. It might scare you a little bit. Scroll down just a bit. We're going to find, look that that looks familiar. Colorful Guy looks to all the boring icons. Windows Explorer. That's a process. And one thing we can do with processes,
• 02:00 - 02:30 and this is one of the main uses of Task Manager. Let's say Windows Explorer isn't working, you're trying to click on the icons down here and it's nothing's responding. That happens often. What you can do is open up Task manager, right click Windows Explorer. When you find out the process, you can either restart Windows Explorer or end the task. I'll do end the task real quick just to show you how scary it might be. End task. Where did everything go? Kind of an important task, wasn't it? Don't worry, we can bring it back.
• 02:30 - 03:00 Don't do anything else. At the top right here we have Run New Task. You can create a new task out of thin air. We're going to do that right now. We're going to run new task. I know that Windows Explorer is called Explorer Exe Go, okay, okay, we're back. But often you probably won't end the application, you'll just do a restart, but sometimes it'll fail and just die on you and you have to start that up again. So that's a handy thing right there. Now real quick, what I want you to do is let's launch, I don't know, Microsoft Edge, launch the application, make sure it's in the foreground and let's just that if you scroll up to the top
• 03:00 - 03:30 of our task manager, look, there he is. Microsoft Edge. He's no longer just a background process. He's now open and he's an app now. Now notice we have a little dropdown icon. Let's take a look at that. Look how cool this is. It's showing us the details of how this app is running and performing on your system and everything it has open. So even shows me tabs. So if I open up here and I go, new tab, new tab, let's just go to Google. One of the, I dunno why I went to that one. And we can see here, it shows us the tabs.
• 03:30 - 04:00 And the killer thing about task manager and when you're looking at processes is over here on the right, which we haven't talked about yet, it's showing us what each thing in our system is doing, how many resources it's using from A CPU to memory to disc to network. So if your system's slow bogged down, going crazy. So for example, if I wanted to open a million tabs and Microsoft Edge, what's the shortcut? Control T? Ah. Okay, I should open up a lot. What that should cause is Microsoft Edge to use more resources on my system.
• 04:00 - 04:30 Notice it is going up. Not only do we have now 50 tabs open, but it's using almost a gig of memory and it's kind of fluctuating on CPU and notice because Windows is more advanced now, they do have efficiency modes which will load up an app in the background just a little bit if you're not using it. So it can save some energy and save some CPU and memory stuff. Now, just like a background process, if an app starts giving you trouble, let's say Microsoft Edge isn't responding the way you want it to,
• 04:30 - 05:00 you can't close it. Even going down here to the application in your task bar and right clicking it and saying close window, sometimes that just won't work. It'll freeze. So the go-to location is your task manager. You come in here, go to Microsoft Edge, right, click that and say in that task goodbye and it's gone. Now moving on to the next fun place is probably my favorite place in task manager and that's performance just below processes here. Performance actually gives you pretty graphs of how your computer is doing from CPU to memory to disc to ethernet. So think of the performance tab as just an overall view like, hey,
• 05:00 - 05:30 how's my computer doing? And then if your computer's doing really poorly, you can dive deep into what's actually going on by going to processes. Now I'm not going to dive too deep into this, but you do have the option of opening up another little thing from here. Notice on the right we have some dots and you can have thumb with this, go down a rabbit hole, go crazy. If I click on that, I can click on a resource monitor and watch what happens. We get a new app that looks kind of old but it looks a bit more detailed and you get a lot more fun things to look at. I'm not going to go into it, just know it's there and it's cool, but we'll close that for now.
• 05:30 - 06:00 App history is very cool. It's a history of your resource usage across your apps, how much time was used, it's pretty cool. Now, another great place, and this didn't always used to be here in Task manager and this is Startup apps. These are the apps in your system that will start up when you reboot your computer. Now, we're not going to cover this right now because there's another place I like to look at to control this, but for example, Cortana is disabled. I like that it's disabled, but I could enable it right here. I could also disable Microsoft Edge, which you know what? Why is that opening? I'm going to disable it right now. Now why would I do that for startup? Well,
• 06:00 - 06:30 it can impact how quickly your machine starts up. If your machine's having to boot up and load the operating system, but also load all these other applications, you're going to be sitting there sipping your coffee for a while, which normally is okay, but if you've got stuff to do, come on, you got stuff to do. I like a quick boot up and I like to start the apps manually myself. Just a personal choice. Now we got users, shows logged in users and what the users are currently doing. And got to be honest, man, task Manager has come a long way. Didn't use to show all this stuff. As an admin, I could say disconnect the user.
• 06:30 - 07:00 I can jump right into managing the user accounts from here, which takes me to look at that control panel. Then we got details. Details is like processes, but a little more crazy, more detail for you. And then finally, services. I'm not going to go too deep into services, but just kind of think of it as an application or a background service that you want to run all the time. And notice that on the status here, some are stopped or not running because we don't need those, but others like let's go find one that's definitely necessary and you'll understand why it's a service. It's important. So services like Credential Manager, which is the Vault service, D-H-C-P-D-N-S,
• 07:00 - 07:30 Microsoft Defender, these things run as services that we can start restart. But notice we don't end a task like an app or background process or the Spooner man, if you ever have to support printers, print Spooner. If you ever have a print job that you gets stuck, the print queue is going crazy, you go in here and restart the sucker. Happens all the time. Now that's Task Manager, an application you're going to use all the time, probably every day. That's all I got. I'll see you in the next episode.