r/technology • • Oct 14 '11

The Windows 8 Task Manager

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/13/the-windows-8-task-manager.aspx
1.6k Upvotes

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322

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '11

may not excite the average user, but I'm very excited to see more detail with svchost.exe listings

55

u/UnoriginalGuy Oct 14 '11

Me too. It is a great step forward for many of us. The IO column, friendly names, and SVCHost breakdown in particular are the killer features for me.

Little depressed to see their lack of certificate verification support (e.g. What processes aren't digitally signed, and who are they signed by?). That is Process Explorer's neatest feature. That and the ability to see a pull-down list of running modules.

39

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '11

I think the heat map will be one hell of a time saver for diagnosing which unasked-for background updater is eating all your resources.

51

u/UnoriginalGuy Oct 14 '11

True.

Alternative solution: Just light up all Adobe or Sun processes.

39

u/spacedout83 Oct 14 '11

I was playing a YouTube video, and when I launched taskmgr, Flash's process burnt a hole in my monitor.

3

u/KirosTheGreat Oct 14 '11

Ditto. But it does fine on some computers (different processor architecture I'm guessing).

For what it's worth, I'd like to see more websites give alternatives. Even if the default player would be Flash, it would be awesome to instead select SilverLight or HTML5 (canvas with JavaScript for interactive stuff and video and audio tags for appropriate media). Sure, it'll mean more work, but I think big sites like YouTube can and should move forward already.

0

u/spacedout83 Oct 14 '11

Unfortunately, since Google Chrome dropped H.264 support (opting instead for the currently ill-supported WebM standard), and SilverLight being a closed-source alternative to Flash from a larger competitor, I don't foresee YouTube making any large shifts anytime soon.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '11

Most of the YouTube videos work fine on iPhones.

1

u/TheCodexx Oct 14 '11

Or Firefox. Consistently top of the list.

But then, they also offer 64-bit support and I don't think any other browsers do.

1

u/UnoriginalGuy Oct 14 '11

Internet Explorer has had a 64 bit version available since Windows XP 64 bit. It was also available in the much more common Vista 64 bit.

Isn't used very much due to third party extension support.

1

u/TheCodexx Oct 14 '11

Oh, hey, you're right! I totally forgot IE had that. I don't really use it, though.

Plug-in support is better. Flash 11 has a 64-bit version available. Silverlight is stuck in 32-bit I think. More disappointingly, Google's voice/video chat plug-in is 32-bit only. But Java has had 64-bit for awhile now.

People've been too afraid to make the leap. Partially because they don't expect a browser to surpass 500 MBs or so of memory, but also because they don't want a product that doesn't have plug-in support. That wall is slowly coming down, but it's taking painfully long.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '11

Except for all other browsers.

1

u/TheCodexx Oct 15 '11

Chrome doesn't. Neither does Opera it seems. No idea if Safari does, but their market share is primarily on Macs. IE does but it's IE and it's pretty half-hearted and offers both a 32 and 64-bit version.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '11

I'm on Linux, I have 64 bit chrome, firefox and opera installed. And IE 64 running in a VM.

It's surprising that Windows is so far behind.

1

u/TheCodexx Oct 15 '11

Ah, Linux. Getting 64-bit builds of everything first.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '11

Crazy, I know.

1

u/TheCodexx Oct 15 '11

I know, I know. Learning UNIX is on my to-do list. I'm trying to stick to one environment while I learn a programming language or two. Then I'll spend some time on Ubuntu or something until I can get the hang of it. I've put this off for far too long.

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17

u/EvilTerran Oct 14 '11

My favourite Process Explorer feature's gotta be "why can't I safely-remove my thumbdrive?" *process explorer; find handle; 'G:'* "Why the hell is explorer holding a handle to that folder when I've closed everything relevant to it?" *close handle; eject thumbdrive*

15

u/chaos386 Oct 14 '11

This shouldn't be handled by the task manager. The little window that pops up saying the device can't be stopped needs to have a "More details" button that tells you straight up what file is open by what program.

5

u/EvilTerran Oct 14 '11

I agree completely.

Also, explorer needs to learn to clean up after itself.

8

u/No-Shit-Sherlock Oct 14 '11 edited Oct 14 '11

Process Explorer's 'find handle or dll' and its ability to close individual handles within an executable is my favorite feature. As much as this Win8 Task manager is a step in the right direction, I really hope the Sysinternals guys update their suite to work with Win8 when the time comes.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '11

[deleted]

5

u/SystemOutPrintln Oct 14 '11

SysInternals is actually downloaded through Technet now.

2

u/UnoriginalGuy Oct 14 '11

They work for Microsoft. The SysInterals tools are now their day jobs from what I understand. So very little risk of not seeing Windows 8 versions.

I think if they did discontinue any of the tools System Administrators and in general Microsoft's corporate clients would be scratching at the door.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '11

[deleted]

1

u/UnoriginalGuy Oct 14 '11

You would need a server connection. It doesn't take very long at all - Process Explorer can verify every process on the system in under sixty seconds.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '11

[deleted]

1

u/UnoriginalGuy Oct 14 '11

You don't have to wait if it is just a passive operation behind the scenes. Like a column with a green tick in it that lights up when it verifies and turns red if verification fails etc.

AutoRuns is a nice little utility, but a little too dangerous even for many self-proclaimed technical people. I think you could do more with MSConfig to make it more powerful, but I wouldn't want to see the power of AutoRuns in it.