Need help with Task Manager. For the past two or three months when I do a CNTL-ALT-DEL and look at Task Manager I get about 239 things that are running. It use to be when I did a Control Alt Delete all I got was what I had running (i.e.: Outlook, Solitairre, and a Ham Log) and that was it.
Somewhere along the line either I or Microsoft changed something or there’s a switch that somehow got switched to show me all that cr*p but I really don’t want it. I just want to know what’s running in the foreground so I can shut it down and re-boot.
Hi Golfer, When in Ctrl Alt Del, and in the processes tab, if you click on CPU at the top of the column it will put them in order of what is running. All the ones that are not taking resources will be below. You can then click on the process you want to end task. Hope that helps.
I don’t remember ever having less than a zillion things showing in Task Manager, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.
(Personally I like to sort Processes descending on Power Usage. The way it swaps around what is on top can be quite interesting, and informative, in a geeky sort of way.)
Basic TM view shows apps you activated. “More details” (which may be your default) shows everything that is running, including “background processes.” I currently have 5 Apps running and 212 background processes. Note, you want to be able to see what is running in the background if you want to disable anything that might be secretly or otherwise hidden and still running.
If you just shut down the Apps, you should be able to reboot without issue (or just power off and on again).
Well, in the Process view in Task Manager in Windows 11, it groups them by Apps, Background Processes and Windows Processes. Perhaps you were seeing just the Apps before, which I seem to remember was a separate view available in older versions of Windows, but now doesn’t seem to be.
