In-Depth with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview
by Andrew Cunningham, Ryan Smith, Kristian Vättö & Jarred Walton on March 9, 2012 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Microsoft
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Windows 8
Task manager
For the first time in memory, the Windows Task Manager has gotten a significant overhaul, and that doesn’t just refer to its new Metro-esque styling—Task Manager now combines functions from the old Task Manager, the Windows Resource Monitor, and MSConfig into a new, more useful app that provides a lot of information in a clean and simple way.
Open up the Task Manager and click “More Details” and the first thing you’ll see is the Processes tab, which gives you a clean list of all Metro and desktop apps running on your system and the resources they’re using—the new Task Manager tracks CPU, RAM, disk, and network bandwidth usage. You can see both absolute values (Firefox is using 164.7 MB of RAM) or in percentages (Firefox is using 8.9% of your RAM), and you can spot resource hogs at a glance—as you can see in the screenshot above, the colors in the Task Manager vary based on how much of a given resource a process is consuming. Apps, background processes, and Windows/system processes are each displayed under their own subheadings.
The Performance tab now tracks CPU, RAM, disk, and network usage, and it tracks each network interface separately for your convenience. The CPU graph can be configured to show activity on all cores combined or separately. You can view both graphs and hard numbers for each resource, and you can also see different information about your computer’s hardware—the current clock speed of your CPU, the number of RAM slots you have and how many are occupied, your current IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and more. The Resource Monitor is still available if you need a more advanced view, but this tab alone drastically increases the Task Manager’s usefulness.
Next up, the App History tab shows statistics for resource usage over time. It’s mostly geared toward network usage, breaking out stats for how much data an app has used on both metered and non-metered networks, as well as how much bandwidth has been spent on keeping Metro live tiles up to date. It also gives you statistics for CPU time. App usage history can be deleted at any time if you’d like a fresh start.
The other tabs are pretty self-explanatory, so we’ll go through them quickly: the Startup tab shows a list of programs that launch when your computer starts. This functionality used to be handled by a combination of the “Startup” folder in the Start menu and a tab in the MSConfig.exe utility (which still exists, but is no longer used to control startup items). The Users tab shows resource usage broken out by logged-in users, much like in the old Task Manager, and will also allow administrators to disconnect users. The Details tab gives a complete unadorned list of all processes and their resource usage, while the Services tab shows all services on your computer whether they’re running or not—you can start, stop, or restart services from this tab, but you’ll have to go into the Services utility for more options.
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jardows2 - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
This "new" Metro interface seems quite reminiscant of the Windows 3.1 Program manager. I actually prefer the program manager to the start menu, it seemed better organized and more efficient to me. I'll have to give this a try!Beenthere - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
...before I use Win 8.bigboxes - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Ever try uTorrent?androticus - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Please stop aping the Microsoft Marketing Machine (MMM) use of the term du jour, "fluid"--it is annoyingly littered throughout all their Win 8 materials, both promotional and technical. No one ever used this term to describe UI's before this new fetish introduce by MS. Please stop embarrassing yourselves by so slavishly following their lead. Thank you!jabber - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I wouldn't call anything that involves me having to move far left and right across the screen to do stuff 'fluid'.Bloody stupid maybe.
Fluid as in a full fishtank in the back seat of car maybe.
samgab - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I tried Win8CP for a day before I gave up on it and rolled back to Win7.Allow me to attempt to review it in three words:
I hate it.
noname3 - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Nice article, but I disagree with some of the conclusions. Any program that goes full screen on my 30” monitor has to be either a game or a program that has some bugs in it. The whole premise of Windows is that you can control the size of the…Windows. This is a tablet oriented operating system pretending to be useful on the desktop.After >20 years of using and programming in Windows, I am seriously considering switching to a Unix variant. Enough of the Microsoft marketing bs, they have no respect for their legacy and they have completely alienated their strongest user base.
The Windows 8 kernel is a gem, but any benefits are obliterated by the brainless UI. Good luck to them trying to sell this crap. Experienced users will want proper Windows, business are just upgrading to Windows 7, Apple and Android selling like hot cakes, they will only have some dedicated funs upgrading to this abomination, the future looks not very promising for them. This is the worst time to piss off their dedicated followers.
The funniest thing is that they have applied the same brainless UI in the Windows Server 8 too. Using the UI over remote desktop does not activate the corner controls consistently and you end up using the console commands to achieve anything. If this is what I have to do why should I not use a Unix OS? If I have to learn how to use computers from scratch and basically keep searching for everything and memorizing shortcuts, I may as well move to Linux, there is no difference.
I installed Vista since the “beta” days and I found it more functional than XP (maybe I am the only one) but I likes it a lot (even though I found a lot of the controls scattered all over the place). Then Windows 7 came out and it was what Vista should be and so far I think it is the best OS, unfortunately it is the last one too. I am not going to wait until 2015 or 2020 for Microsoft to get their act together, I have a career to maintain.
Microsoft has turned the UI over to a bunch of marketing clowns chasing Apple and Google. I do not like this circus-type company anymore, Sinofsky and Ballmer need to get fired soon and get some serious and creative people at the top, enough we those “me too” mappets.
thebeastie - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I say you will be able to download a dodgey complete release in late July more likely August.But I dont think you will see a Tablet in a store with Windows 8 on it until December, part of my gauge for that is that MS stock price has gone up %25 in the last 3 months and its ALWAYS about the money when it comes to MS releasing important new revenue generating software, sorry to you naive tech heads.
Just match the release dates in the past to their stock chart when its flat to dropping, it fits great, its that simple.
Robo2k - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
...and Microsoft tells you: "Your future computer experience: keyboard shortcuts"SERIOUSLY????
I mean they did so many things right with Win 7, now they're talking a huge step backwards in time. With defacto nonexistent multitasking, keyboard shortcuts and a terrible waste of screen real estate.
Never an OS has looked so damn stupid.
Hopefully the many issues will be corrected util it goes gold.
jabber - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I must admit I never ever got into using shortcuts. Should I have done? I started using a mouse when I was 16 when I got a Mac 512k and thought I was supposed to use that for getting around. I found it far more useful than using the keyboard.Today I still only use the keyboard for entering text like I am now. The rest of the time its trackpad or mouse. I don't know any of my customers that use them either.
Now I'm having to learn Windows 8 (well I'm going to have to support my customers aren't I going forward) and having to learn all the keyboard shortcuts.
Just feels like going backwards.
I guess my training/install costs will have to rise as it's going to take more than the usual 5 minutes explaining Libraries and Shutdown in Windows 7 migration.
Plus at the end of the day...who wants to buy a Windows Tablet?