Windows 8 Task Manager Features Improved UI for Multiple CPUs
by Andrew Cunningham on October 27, 2011 5:30 PM ESTMicrosoft's Ryan Haveson takes to the Building Windows 8 blog today to give us one of our first looks at a Windows 8 feature not included in the Developer Preview: new Task Manager features drastically increase its usefulness on multicore systems, especially on servers with large numbers of logical processor cores.
Rather than the old, graph-based approach, the Windows 8 Task Manager now displays CPU usage in numbers and colors - more heavily loaded processors are darker colored, while lightly used processors are lightly colors. Hovering your mouse over a particular processor will give you its logical processor ID. All of this makes it easier to tell at a glance what each of your logical CPUs are doing, especially in systems with as many cores as the one shown above.
The new Task Manager also allows users to specify which logical processor or processors should run a particular process - one could, for example, restrict a browser or video encoding program to use only one or two of a system's cores, leaving the rest free for other tasks. This feature was also available in previous Windows versions, but the dialog boxes are more informative here.
For more, as always, check out the deeper and more informative post at the Building Windows 8 blog.
Source: Building Windows 8 Blog
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
36 Comments
View All Comments
Shinobisan - Friday, October 28, 2011 - link
Everything is so sparse now days.It reminds me of that horrid theme in the 20th century that "form should follow function" - which gave us boring buildings, boring cars, and boring phones.
Now we are finally breaking free of that age. Manufacturing capabilities are adding fun design elements to cars, buildings, and phones.
But... our computers are going boring? Why do I want solid color boxes as my menu? why can't I fly through a 3D environment and shoot down viruses as I find the App I'm looking for? My PC will do SO much. Why just have it paint solid boxes in flat 2D?
I hates it I do.
stanwood - Friday, October 28, 2011 - link
You're unhappy with the chrome? Aqua effects are probably just turned off for development. (And maybe will stay turned off on ARM systems?) Hopefully there will be plenty of translucent lighting effects to go around (on a capable PC).Ninhalem - Friday, October 28, 2011 - link
Reading that developer blog is something else. I really appreciate that Microsoft is paying that close attention to user comments (from people that actually use the preview) and is coming up with all these different types of ways to explain their methodology in designing Win8.Exodite - Friday, October 28, 2011 - link
SPARC called, they want their TWM window styling back.p05esto - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Do any of you people actually read anymore? METRO IS OPTIONAL, it is not meant for desktops, you can simply use Windows 8 almost the same as you do Windows 7.... METRO is mostly meant for tablets and phones, it's an operating system where one build runs on many platforms. Imagine your phone, tablet, xbox, desktop and laptop all running the same OS but the OS is smart enough to change the UI a little based on screen size and device it's running on.Obviously MS can't force business users, CAD, 3D, programmers, designers, etc into some crazy touch screen interface - there would be a revolution and mass exodus to the Macintosh or something crazy like that. Common sense alone should tell you that MS is not THAT dumb.
p05esto - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Well, I like the graph MUCH better, it's easy to see the chart history as it rolls by. Where's the usage history here? How can a human read and get a good feel for 100 little boxes with numbers in them? When my CPU is under pressure I'll pull up task manager and watch it while I'm working, I like to see the graph and the history of the last few minutes. This just looks dumb to me. Normally I like what MS does, but not here - at least please offer a couple "display" options.