Windows 8's Advanced Task Manager Revealed

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Keep an eye on what your computer is doing.

Windows 8 will have an new kind of task manager, called Advanced Task Manager. According to information obtained by WinRumors, it appears to be a combination of Microsoft's Task Manager and the Resource Monitor.

There's also appears to be considerations made for touch interfaces, as there's a touch-friendly way to kill tasks – perhaps for tablet implementations of Windows 8.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tdenton1138
    Hopefully this will at least compete with Process Explorer...
    Reply
  • virtualban
    Yes, Process Explorer is what I call advanced in comparison to Task Manger. This seems just big fluffy icons and graphs. :)
    Reply
  • davewolfgang
    The should have at least a toggle for "normal PC" or "tablet/touch PC", so that for us normal users we don't have to put up with the HUGE icons taking up all that screen space.
    Reply
  • hoofhearted
    It needs to show what network resources are being used (sockets and such), not this big stupid icon crap. Granted with the later windows, they are showing "Image Path Name" and "Command Line", which are great, but you still have to correlate a PID with the output of "netstat -ano" from the command line.
    Reply
  • gogogadgetliver
    davewolfgangThe should have at least a toggle for "normal PC" or "tablet/touch PC", so that for us normal users we don't have to put up with the HUGE icons taking up all that screen space.
    They've got a level of detail dropdown in the upper right there.

    General MS UI design will put small compact icons near what you are working on and large ones far away. Think right click vs ribbon.

    They are actually pretty good at making UIs. I'm having faith this will turn out.

    Reply
  • gogogadgetliver
    hoofheartedIt needs to show what network resources are being used (sockets and such), not this big stupid icon crap. Granted with the later windows, they are showing "Image Path Name" and "Command Line", which are great, but you still have to correlate a PID with the output of "netstat -ano" from the command line.
    Resource monitor in Win7 does this. No need to drop to a netstat. See Network tab then check a box by the process.

    As for the big touch friendly icons.. there seems to be a detail slider in the upper right.
    Reply
  • mobrocket
    I am a little surpised that MS is leaking details of Windows 8 already... the adoption of Windows 7 isnt even fully in swing...

    if its a more tablet friendly o/s i would call it by a different name
    Reply
  • Marco925
    I guess after 16 threads, the old task manager gets crowded.
    Reply
  • iamtheking123
    So much whitespace and foofy graphics. Can't wait to open it up and see CPU usage spike 10%.
    Reply
  • Diversian
    gogogadgetliverThey've got a level of detail dropdown in the upper right there.General MS UI design will put small compact icons near what you are working on and large ones far away. Think right click vs ribbon.They are actually pretty good at making UIs. I'm having faith this will turn out.gogogadgetliverResource monitor in Win7 does this. No need to drop to a netstat. See Network tab then check a box by the process.As for the big touch friendly icons.. there seems to be a detail slider in the upper right.
    Except for Windows Phone 7 UI...
    Reply