The Processes Shown By Task Manager

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Windows Task Manager is utterly confusing to most people. You have been told there might be something useful there, but if you don't understand it....It's not worth much. There are five tabs, one each for, Applications, Processes, Performance, Networking, and Users. For this discussion we'll focus primarily on the Application and the Processes tab.
First the Applications Tab shows you what windows are open. To state a different way, each individual line lists a window that is running something. You may have your email application, your web browser, and your word processing application open. In this case you would see three applications listed on the tab. If you suspect one or more of the programs might be slowing your computer, or much worse started thinking on its own and are performing malicious acts, you can close down that that program. This can be done by right clicking on the application name in the list and selecting the End Task button.
Now we will discuss the Processes tab. There is quite a bit more to cover here. We'll start in this article and reveal more in additional articles.
The Processes tab shows the processes that are running on your computer. This is typically a quite a bit longer list than the list on the Applications tab. The Processes list shows all the things that are also running in the computer besides the applications. Many are processes necessary for the Windows operating system to operate properly. Some represent the applications that are running in the computer. An Application might need more than one process to operate properly. Some of the processes might be processes don't absolutely have to be running, or in some cases, most likely not in your case, it could be a virus of some sort or one of many other things running potentially malicious acts utilizing your computer as the host.
The columns of data on the Processes tab can be sorted by selecting the top of any of the columns.
The Image Name column shows the names of the processes. A few of the processes should be readily identifiable while most will be a name that cannot be easily related to anything and does not reflect the name of the application that it is being run by in any way. Some investigating might be necessary at this point. You can Google the process name or you can go straight to a site like www.findosinfo.com and search for the process name on the website. Www.FindOSInfo.com is an online database containing over 100,000 Windows and application processes and components. It can tell you who the author of the process is, where the directory and file are from which the process originated, and usually much more information concerning the process. The library can even tell you if the process is dangerous or be a virus and what actions to take.
The column, User Name, will let you know what user ordered the process to start. This piece of information can be quite helpful to be aware of. The process could be started by the system, the network, or some user of the computer. The System processes are typically processes started by the Windows operating system. Network processes are utilized by the network to get to your LAN or the internet. Many processes in the list will have a user name attached to them. These usually are processes that are running as a result of a program or task the user has initiated.
The CPU column displays the percentage of the processor that is being used by each process. Most processes will be at or near 0 percent because they are not doing any work. They only use CPU time when they are actively performing a task. Click on the CPU header of the column and it will sort the processes with the highest percentages at the top. This is most useful to see what processes are using the most CPU time.
Low Memory warnings may be a sign, that you may need to take a look at the Mem Usage column and see what, if any, processes are using the largest amounts of memory. It may require you to reconfigure the programs that are running those processes. Or, maybe you'll discover that one or more of the processes is not even necessary for the operating system to run correctly by Windows or the application that it belongs to.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Henry A Marshall is a member of the Find OS Info team that maintains, www.findosinfo.com . The website contains information on over 100,000 processes, files, and modules used by Windows and the 1000's of applications that run under Windows. He has had several articles published on computer viruses that may be dangerous to your computer. Get a Unique Version of this Article Article Marketing

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