Task Manager is a Windows tool everyone uses at some point, but there's quite a high ceiling to what it can do if you want to learn the ins and outs of it. What's merely a task killer for most users can be a genuinely useful tool for development and debugging, for example.
A lot of features of the Task Manager can be a bit hidden or just fly under the radar for a lot of people. So we've rounded up some of the most useful things you might not know about Task Manager on Windows 11 (we're specifically using version 24H2 here) so you too can take your knowledge to the next level.
13 Launch Task Manager with keyboard shortcuts
We don't just mean Ctrl+Alt+Delete
Background image credit: Nintendo
I feel like everyone who knows about Task Manager probably knows you can launch it by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete on your keyboard and then choosing Task Manager from the list of options. Even as a kid this was a shortcut I used all the time.
But there are actually some ways to make it even faster. One option is to press Windows + X on the keyboard, followed by pressing T. This just uses the Quick Link menu, which actually has a bunch of other useful shortcuts, too. If you want to make it even faster, you can also press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to summon Task Manager instantly.
This is one of the more basic tricks on this list, but it can be a big time saver if you didn't know about it before.
12 Change the default tab
If Processes isn't good enough for you
Task Manager always launches by default in the Processes tab, which is the basic view everyone will probably get the most use out of. You can use this tab to easily terminate processes, which is all too useful when an app refuses to respond.
But if you don't have that much use for this tab, or you'd rather use a different one by default, you can do just that. Just click the cog wheel in the bottom left corner of the Task Manager window to go into the settings, and you'll see the Default start page option with a dropdown menu to choose your favorite. Every tab is available here, so just pick your favorite.
11 Use the old Task Manager
Not a fan of the Windows 11 design?
In Windows 11, Microsoft introduced a new design for the Task Manager that falls more in line with the rest of the operating system, with dark mode support, transparency effects, and so on. However, some users aren't so happy with this change, especially because it can sometimes take a little too long to load.
If you prefer the old style of Task Manager, there's a solution for you. Simply press Windows + R to open the Run dialog, and then type taskmgr -d, then press Enter. You now have the older version of Task Manager with the classic tabbed UI. Of course, you also miss out on things like dark mode support, but for some users, that trade-off is probably worth it.
10 The context menu options
There's more options than "End task"
When you open Task Manager, there's a good chance you're using to right-click a process and choose End task so your frozen apps stop wasting your time. But have you ever glanced over at the othe roptions that appear in the context menu of the Processes tab? There are a few good ones in there, but here are some highlights you might want to check out:
Create memory dump file - For debugging purposes, this can help you find out what's causing a crash or other issues with a given app. Open file location - Want to uninstall an app or make sure it is what it says it is? Opening the file's location will reveal where the process is stored, so you might be able to see the developer or get a better idea of what the actual program is. You can usually even uninstall it. Search online - Something you don't recognize? This option searches up the name of the process you selected so you can make sure whether it can be trusted or not.
9 Add more columns to your views
You can get a lot more information
Close
You might think the views that Task Manager offers are just the way they are, but in reality, there's quite a bit you can change about them so you can see information you care about the most. This goes for both the Processes and Details tabs, which is where you can pull a lot of information about what your PC processes are doing.
In the Processes tab, you can right-click the title of any column to see a list of columns you can enable or disable. Some of these options include the GPU, Power usage, or Process ID, so you can easily get that much more information about the resources each process is using and what that process actually is.
Over in the Details tab, you can also right-click the title of a column and then choose Select columns to see a long list of options. There are a ton of them here, so we can't possibly cover all of them, but an option like I/O Read bytes can allow you to monitor how heavily your apps are using your disk, for example. You can see if a process is running with elevation or if it's using UAC virtualization, among many other things. Explore these options and you're bound to find something that could come in handy at some point.
8 Disable startup tasks
It's so useful
Disabling startup tasks is far from a hidden feature in the Task Manager (it has its own tab and everything), but it's a relatively recent addition and one that's extremely useful if you want to speed up your PC. As you build up more and more apps installed on your PC, many of them will try to start with the system, which can drag things down to a crawl during the boot process and slow your PC down overall.
In the Startup tab, you can get a good look at all the apps that might be starting with your system to make sure they're not eating into your boot times and overall resources. If you want something to stop starting with Windows, just disable that specific entry. You can restart your PC after you've disabled everything you want and you might see a pretty big difference in performance. I highly recommend doing this, as it's one of the first things I do with any Windows PC.
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7 Open Command Prompt
With admin rights, too
One of the more prominent buttons you might see in the modern Task Manager is the Run new task option in the menu at the top. It's a fairly unassuming button and does exactly what it says it does, letting you run a new program or executable file.
What you might not know about it, though, is that holding the Ctrl key on your keyboard while clicking the button will instantly open Command Prompt with administrator privileges. It's a pretty interesting hidden feature that definitely speeds things up if you're trying to get to the command line quickly. Interestingly, it only works with Command Prompt, so it doesn't use Windows Terminal or anything.
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6 Focus on a performance graph
Monitoring performance made easy
The Performance tab in Task Manager has a few nifty features, and it's a good way to monitor overall resource usage on your PC, with a good amount of detail to dive into. You can see data for various components here, but if you want to focus on just one and have a clearer view, double-clicking a graph is a good way to do it.
When you double-click any graph in the Performance tab, the Task Manager window will turn into a floating widget that focuses just on the graph, so you can have it on screen while testing the performance impact of something. Sadly, this doesn't make the widget sit above other active windows, which does reduce its usefulness a bit, but you can pair it with a tool like PowerToys' Always on Top if that's something you need. It's just a neat feature to have.
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5 View network details
Want more insights
One of the many things you can monitor in the Performance tab of Task Manager is your network usage, such as the overall speed and how much data is being sent or received. It's not a very detailed view, but if you do want to see more information, then you can right-click the graph and click View Network details.
This will show you information about all your available network connections (including Bluetooth) and many more details about how many bytes have been sent and received, how much of your total bandwidth is being used, and much more. It's not something everyone needs, but it's certainly an interesting set of information to look at.
4 View all your CPU cores
It's kind of mesmerizing
You know how the Performance tab in Task Manager just shows you the overall CPU usage in a graph? It's pretty useful for standard monitoring, but what if you want to get a little crazier with it? Well, just go ahead and right-click the CPU graph, then choose Change graph to and finally click Logical processors. Suddenly, you might have over a dozen graphs on screen, all showing different data.
Modern CPUs have multiple physical cores, and each core often has two threads, which is what Windows refers to as a "logical processor". When you enable this view, each of the threads on your CPU gets its own graph, so you can see much more granularly how each of your CPU cores is being utilized. A laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H has 16 cores and 22 threads, so it makes for a fun graph to observe, but any modern laptop will make it at least a little more interesting. For example, you can see an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V above with eight cores and eight threads.
3 Freeze the window
Need a better look?
Task Manager is useful because it updates in real time and makes it pretty easy to monitor changes in behavior when you open a specific app or attempt a certain task. But sometimes, the constant updates might make you miss important information you're trying to spot or share.
The solution? Simply press the Ctrl key while looking at any of the views in Task Manager, and the information on screen will be frozen so you can look at the details more closely and not have things disappear before you can understand what's happening. This is a very simple trick, but potentially a very useful one.
2 Send messages to other users
Useful for shared PCs
If you have a family computer that you share with your parents, children, or siblings, you probably have multiple user accounts to keep things separate. But did you know that, if you're the administrator of the computer, you can send messages to other users on the computer?
In the Users tab, you can see the active sessions on your PC, and if you want to leave your session running while someone else might be using the PC, you can send a message to that account, which will let them know whatever you want. For example, you might ask them not to turn off the computer if you're doing an important task in the background.
1 Analyze wait chain
Troubleshoot frozen apps
When an app freezes on Windows, there could be a wide range of reasons for it. Most of the time, you'll just use Task Manager to end the task, but there's a much more interesting option here that might help you avoid losing your data. In the Details tab, you can right-click an app and choose Analyze wait chain, and this will show you potential processes that might be using a resource that task needs, preventing it from moving forward.
Thanks to this feature, you might be able to shut down the culprit behind an app freezing without closing the entire app. It won't always be a solution, but if you're working with important data you don't want to lose, it's worth checking out this option to make sure there's no other way.
There's more to Task Manager than you might think
We're sure many of you probably read this and already knew many if not all of these, but for the majority of people, there's a lot here you might never have heard about. I certainly learned a lot while researching for this very article, so I'm sure many others will appreciate the tips. Task Manager is a much more powerful tool than many people realize, and it's worth checking all of these features out.
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