Windows 8 task manager with advanced and improved features

Task manager is one of the most common applications used by all Windows users. They mainly use this to end a process, or switch between applications or to know the system performance. In Windows XP you can see the running applications and processes in Task Manager, and can also get information about the performance and networking of the computer. Also there is a tab for knowing the users. See the task manager of Windows XP below.
Windows XP Task Manager

Compared to Windows XP, in Windows 7, there occurs only one extension to Task Manager which is a service tab. You can now see the screenshot below of a Windows 7 Task Manager.

During the development of Windows 8, Microsoft conduct a feedback program called "Telemetry" to understand the taste of Windows users. According to this feedback program "Telemetry" Microsoft understand that most of the users are using the first two tabs of Task Manager which is the "Applications Tab" and "Processes Tab". According to Telemetry 85% uses the above said tabs and only 15% of users use the rest of the tabs. They also found out that the 20% of actions in Task Manager is used for "ending a task" and 12% is used for "ending a process". So the Windows team decided to modify these tabs to make Windows 8 Task Manager more users friendly.

The main advancement in Windows Task Manager is the presence of "Fewer Details View" and "More Details View". In fewer details you will only see the running applications and the only option is to "End the Task". As the most of the users use the Task Manager to end applications, Windows provide only running applications in fewer details view. You can clearly see the default view of Windows 8 Task Manager in the below screenshot.
windows 8 task manager default view

Processes Tab in Windows 8 Task Manager

In more details view the first tab is "Processes tab". Through the Windows 8 Task Manager you can see the "CPU usage", "Memory usage", "Disk Usage" and "Network Usage" tabs in Processors tab. There were lack of information about network usage and disk usage in older Windows but Windows 8 Task Manager comes with these information similar to CPU and memory use. Another important implementation in Windows 8 Task Manager is the presence of "Heat Map". Heat map represents different value with different colors. The application which uses large resources will be shown with dark color and which have less use is represented by lighter color. In the below screenshot you can see a red color in CPU usage and it is a warning for over CPU usage. Also the application which uses maximum CPU is denoted by dark color. So with this heat map users can easily understand the applications which are using most resources without going deep into the data and all and can end the processes easily.
windows 8 task manager resource usuage

Another most noticeable change in Windows 8 Task Manager is the grouping of processes. The processes are grouped as "Applications", "Background Processes" and "Windows Processes". Also the processes are denoted by friendly name instead of technical names. For example "splwow64.exe" is shown in Task Manager of Windows 7 but "Print driver host for applications" is shown in the Task Manager of Windows 8. By using this friendly name users will get more idea about the processes.
Groupin processes task manager

Grouping processes under parent process is another improvement of Windows 8 Task Manager. In the screenshot below you can see the parent process "Microsoft Outlook" and also can see its sub process under it. This will be very helpful for ending a process within an application. See the screenshot below.
windows 8 task manager grouping top level

windows 8 task manager grouping top level

Another implementation is integration of "Search the web" option in right click window. Through this facility you can easily search the processes in default search engine and can know the use of the process. Also the search engine can be customized. In below screenshots "Fast User Switching Utility Service" is searched by using this special feature.

As already explained Windows 8 task manager uses mainly the friendly names instead of technical names. Most Windows uses see the process "svchost.exe" in their task manager and they never no the use of the process.
windows 8 task manager svchost

Actually it is "Service Host Process" and in Windows 8 the process is named as it is. Also the processes associated with this process are grouped together.

Windows 8 task manager with advanced and improved features

Processes Tab in Windows 8 Task Manager

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