Experiment No.
1
Title: Exploring Windows Task Manager
Aim: To study various functionalities of Windows Task Manager
Practically
Task Manager overview
Task Manager provides information about programs and processes running on your computer. It
also displays the most commonly used performance measures for processes.
You can use Task Manager to monitor key indicators of your computer's performance. You can
see the status of the programs that are running and end programs that have stopped responding.
You can also assess the activity of running processes using as many as fifteen parameters, and
see graphs and data on CPU and memory usage.
In addition, if you are connected to a network, you can view network status and see how your
network is functioning.
If you have more than one user connected to your computer, you can see who is connected, what
they are working on, and you can send them a message.
You can open Task Manager by right-clicking an empty area on the taskbar and then clicking
Task Manager, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
The Applications tab shows the status of the programs running on your computer. On this tab,
you can end, switch to, or start a program.
o Update Task Manager data
o End a program with Task Manager
o Start a new program
o Switch to another program
o Networking fields overview
The Processes tab shows information about the processes running on your computer. For
example, you can display information on CPU and memory usage, page faults, handle count, and
a number of other parameters.
• Assign a process to a processor
• Change the priority of a running program
• End a process with Task Manager
• Process counter column headings
• Sort the list of processes
• Specify process counter column headings
CSE-2252 Operating Systems Lab. Manual (4th Sem. CSE YCCE)
The Performance tab displays a dynamic overview of your computer's performance, including:
o Graphs for CPU and memory usage.
o Totals for the number of handles, threads, and processes running on your
computer.
o Totals, in kilobytes, for physical, kernel, and commit memory.
The Networking tab displays a graphical representation of network performance. It provides a
simple, qualitative indicator that shows the status of the network(s) that are running on your
computer. The Networking tab is displayed only if a network card is present. On this tab, you
can view the quality and availability of your network connection, whether you are connected to
one or more than one network.
The Users tab displays users who can access this computer, and session status and names. Client
Name specifies the name of the client computer using the session, if applicable. Session provides
a name for you to use to perform such tasks as sending another user a message or connecting to
another users session. The Users tab is displayed only if the computer you are working on has
Fast User Switching enabled, and is a member of a workgroup or is a standalone computer. The
Users tab is unavailable on computers that are members of a network domain.
The Services Tab
Windows service is a special type of application that is configured to launch and run in the
background, in some cases before the user has even logged in. They can be configured to run as
the local system account. Services are designed to run continuously in the background and
perform system tasks, like backing up your computer or running a server process that listens on a
network port.
Back in the Windows XP days, services could be configured to run interactively and run
alongside the rest of your applications, but since Vista, all services are forced to run in a special
window session that can’t interact with your local desktop. So a service that tries to open a dialog
box or show you a message won’t be allowed to do so.
Unlike regular applications, which can be simply launched and run under your user account, a
service must be installed and registered with Windows, which requires an administrator account,
and usually a User Account Control prompt before that happens. So if you don’t allow an
application to run as administrator, it cannot just create a service to run in the background.
The Services Panel
Windows has always used the Services panel as a way to manage the services that are running on
your computer. You can easily get there at any point by simply hitting WIN + R on your
keyboard to open the Run dialog, and typing in services.msc.
The Services panel is fairly simple: there are a list of services, a status column to show whether it
is running or not, and more information like name, description, and the startup type of the
service. You’ll notice that not every service is running all the time.
CSE-2252 Operating Systems Lab. Manual (4th Sem. CSE YCCE)
While you can select a service and either right-click it or click the toolbar buttons to start, stop,
or restart it, you can also double-click to open up the properties view and get more information.
Disabling the service is as simple as changing the Startup type drop-down to disabled and
choosing Apply, although you can also change it to Manual or automatic with a delayed start.
From this dialog you can see the full path to the executable as well, which can help in many
cases when you want to see what exactly the service is running.
Lab. Observations:
(students shall write about six important lab. observations on the use of Task
Manager in this section)
Conclusions:
CSE-2252 Operating Systems Lab. Manual (4th Sem. CSE YCCE)
