Tech Spotlight

The Task Manager is a very useful tool for looking at an overview of what processes are opened and running on your computer system.  Sometimes individual applications will freeze and be unresponsive.  This is the time you need to launch the Task Manager and end the process, so you can continue computing normally.

The easiest way to open the Task Manager is to right click on the Task Bar and then select Task Manager.  There are 6 tabs in the Task Manager window named Applications, Processes, Services, Performance, Networking and Users.  To end a program from running, click on the application and then click on End Task at the bottom of the window.  Usually you will notice in the status area next to the program it will say Stopped Responding.  Please be aware that you will lose any work that has been done if you end the application in this fashion, but if the program has become unresponsive you have no choice, that’s why you should constantly save your work intermittently to avoid total loss.

You can also use <ALT>, <CTRL> and <DEL> to get to the Task Manager.  Windows Vista has slightly changed what happens when you press these keystrokes.  With Windows XP, it goes directly to the Task Manager and with Windows Vista it will take you to the log-in screen where you have a choice of selecting the Task Manager.

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