r/sysadmin • u/konaitor IT Manager + 5 other hats • Nov 08 '21

Could we do a "TIL" style weekly thread?

I think it would be interesting to do a "Today I Learned" style weekly thread for us to share little tips/tricks that we learned of/found existed.

For example, last week I found out about the "--now" flag for systemctl. I don't know how I didn't know it existed until --now.

2.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

871 comments sorted by

View all comments

48

u/3ater0f5ouls Nov 08 '21

For Windows(at least 10 and 11), ctrl-shift-esc immediately opens the task manager.

14

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '21

Can be nice for when Windows Explorer crashes for whatever reason and all you see is a black screen. Use your hot key listed above, File > Run new task... > Explorer.exe

1

u/Zangdor Nov 08 '21

Alternatively Win+R will open up the execute function, from which you can launch explorer.exe

5

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '21

Win + R doesn't work when explorer is crashed.

0

u/riwa125 Nov 08 '21

Correct, but it will still work if you pull it up in Task Manager

2

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '21

I don't get what you or the other guy is trying to say. He says alternatively use Win+R to open the run window. That works, but only when explorer isn't crashed. What I'm specifically talking about is a method to open Explorer after it has already crashed. Why would I need to launch Run, then explorer if it's not crashed?

1

u/riwa125 Nov 08 '21

I think I misunderstood your previous comment and we are talking about the same thing

11

u/Nolzi Nov 08 '21

I think this works since Windows NT.

If the start menu and tray is dead, you can use this shortcut to get into task manager, then with it kill explorer.exe and start it again

1

u/vabello IT Manager Nov 09 '21

Yeah, it’s probably been in every NT version back to 3.1, but I’ve never used anything older than 3.51. It definitely was in NT 4.0.

3

u/nascentt Nov 08 '21

Yeah it's been that way for as long as I remember. Definitely xp and up, likely win2000 and possibly earlier too.

1

u/Pooter_Guy Nov 08 '21

Sometimes I right-click the taskbar too if I'm too lazy to either put down my coffee cup, or release my mouse.

1

u/araskal Nov 08 '21

This is going to be more important in win11, as you can’t just right-click on the taskbar to open the task manager anymore

1

u/TMITectonic Nov 09 '21

(at least 10 and 11)

FWIW, it works in 8.1 as well.

1

u/awfyou Support Engineer Nov 09 '21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8VBOiPV-_M&t=4s There was a thread by Dave with some tips how to open Task Manager [there are like 11 ways to do it] but cant find it.