If I open Task Manager (from the ctrl-alt-delete screen or from ctrl-shift-escape), instead of the usual window, I currently get this strange floating list with none of the usual controls, and no apparent way to close it:    It appears to be a list of "Services", judging by the fact that right-clicking on any gives the options Start service, Stop service and Go to process. But strangely there's a Services button that goes to another window of services. Unlike the task manager I'm used to, it shows everything including things that aren't running.  Right-clicking on the window itself does nothing.  What I want is the normal list of running applications where I can force things to close.  What is this window, why am I getting it instead of the task manager, and how can I get the normal task manager back?
121089
Possible Duplicate:          I'm not sure what the proper term for the window outline is (chrome, I think?), but it keeps disappearing.    As you can see, theres no File->Exit or buttons that allow me to minimize or close this dialog. So instead it stays on top of everything else (unless I 'Switch To' another window). There is also no Processes tab or anything.  Since you cant right click the toolbar or bring up another instance of Task Manager, the only way to actually kill this dialog seems to be restarting. However the next time I bring up Task Manager, it will still refuse to go away.  Anyone know whats going on? I'm running 32-bit Vista SP1.
50749
I have an indefinitely running scheduled task that repeats every now and then and runs for few minutes. What happens when this task is running and I click restart or shutdown computer? Will Windows let it finish first before shutdown or will Windows kill the task and then shutdown? Is there a way to change the behavior?  I need to ensure that Windows lets the task to finish before shutting down and I couldn't find information about this. If Windows lets it finish the tasks I'm happy with that but if the Windows kills or aborts my task, I would like to know if there is an automatic Windows way to make Windows wait or is the only way to first stop the tasks manually and then shutdown.
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When I login, I notice many process quickly start and terminate in task manager. But it happens very fast and I cannot save details about them (like process name, command line, CPU usage,..)  How can I collect stats about them so I can view them later
21975
I have got a new installation of windows recently. Now when I do unpin items from taskbar that were there (IE, Edge, Explorer), they do come back after restart. A pinned chrome does not disappear though e.g.  Anything to fix this issue?  P.S. Just created a new user, and he has the same problem  P.P.S. Sign out is enough to get it back, no full restart needed
1123
What is the primary difference between the two? I always see this in the right click menu in windows. What happens if you end a process that is relied upon by another process? Is there a way to "kill" a process tree in linux or is the technology different?
96681
Between Ctrl and Alt, modern keyboards have an abominable key: the 'Windows' key :P    By default, when this key is pressed alone it opens the Start menu. Many applications and a great number of games work in fullscreen mode, and if you press this key accidentally, most of times because you wanted to press the Ctrl or Alt keys, the application usually freezes for a while and  minimizes itself. If you are lucky, your videogame will pause, but sometimes it continues even when it is minimized.  Is it possible to disable the 'Windows' key?  It would be possible to show the Start menu with another combination of keys? I would like to keep combinations that use the Windows key working, like Windows+L, which leaves current session.
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Windows 10 has Cortana, which I don't like. I disabled it as soon as I could. However, looking in Task Manager, the process for Cortana is still running, and can't be effectively terminated: ending the task simply results in the process respawning a few seconds later. Using the command  taskkill /IM Cortana.exe /F   has the same result: the process respawns.  Is there any way to disable Cortana so that the process doesn't keep running in the background, and doesn't respawn if terminated?
76221
A random popup appears in Windows 7 titled as Information with a progress bar and a clock. The window sometimes says Please wait a moment..., and the progress bar moves very slowly and disappears.     I don't know the source of this popup. I tried to search regarding this popup on the Internet, and some people had this problem. It also has a question on Yahoo! Answers, but everyone told to scan for malware and viruses.   Is there any way to know the source process for this window/popup?   The task manager shows nothing about this window The only tasks that are running are Google Chrome, etc. Right-click and left-click does not work on this window or its title bar.
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Task Manager shows my total memory usage at 90% of my 6 GB total, but no single process is using more than 250 MB RAM, and the sum of RAM use of all running processes is less than 2 GB. I've tried:   Looking at the numbers in the "Memory" column on the "Processes" tab of Windows 8 Task Manager. Looking at the "Working Set", "Private Working Set", "Shared Working Set", and "Commit Size" columns on the "Details" tab of Task Manager. Looking at similar memory-related columns in Process Explorer. I've tried running Sysinternals RAMMap, but while I'm having the low-memory crisis, it crashes at launch. Once I resolve the problem, RAMMap runs normally, but at that point it's too late.   All show a pretty small amount of memory being used.  There are lots of people asking variants of this question, with various versions of windows, all over the Internet. Some of them manage to solve their low-memory problems, often by re-installing software; sometimes by re-installing windows from scratch. I'm looking for an answer to the general questions that these all share, and that never seem to get answered elsewhere:   Why is total used memory much higher than the memory used by all listed processes, no matter how I try to count them? How could windows "know" that memory is used without knowing what program is using it? What processes might possibly use up memory but not show up on the list? Is there any software out there that can give more information about used memory?   Details specific to my own problem: Since upgrading to Windows 8.1, The problem occurs as soon as I log in. I run out of memory as soon as I ran any program. I noticed in Process Explorer that several instances of iexplore.exe were running, apparently started automatically. One particular instance was only using a few MB of RAM, but showed hundreds of millions of page faults. On a whim, I killed that specific process, and memory usage immediately dropped by 70%.  Leading to one specific question:   How could killing one process that supposedly only used a few MB free up several GB?   And a (presumably hard) bonus question:   Short of re-installing Windows, how might I avoid having to go through this every time I reboot my computer?
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Running Windows 7  I'm trying to boost the startup speed of my computer and I'm going through "msconfig" and "services.msc" to disable some applications from starting up automatically when the computer turns on.  There are some good sites that document the entries found in the "Processes" tab of the task manager.  You can find out if they are safe to kill, who the manufacturer is, and what the process in question is used  for.  Are there any sites that list startup processes &amp;| services that are safe to kill?  For example, there is an entry in msconfig that just says "Computer Browser" - pretty vague, but seems like something to not kill.  On the other hand, there is an entry in msconfig that says "Extensible Authentication Protocol" - pretty specific and seems like it shouldn't be killed, but how can I know for sure?  Does anyone know if there are any websites documenting the "killable" items listed in both msconfig &amp; services.msc?
98143
Any idea how the ability to "drag" the desktop app can be turned off? I'm talking about the area in the top-middle of the screen that changes the mouse cursor when you hover over it. On metro apps it makes sense, but on the desktop more often than not I end up inadvertently dragging the desktop somewhere when trying to select icons.   Screenshot:    If it can't be turned off for the desktop only, can it be disabled globally?
97711
I need to use the ⊞ Win+Tab ↹ shortcut for something else in another program (Reaper). Is there some way to disable the ⊞ Win+Tab ↹ key combination from bringing up Task View without disabling the key functionality? I tried using the following script with AutoHotkey, but then I get no input from typing the shortcut, so I just can't use it at all.  #Tab::Return   Is there some way to simply disable the Task View feature in Windows 10 via group policy change or regedit? I really have no use for it, and would like to be able to use ⊞ Win+Tab ↹ to do something else.
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I closed an application, but the process remained in the list. I try to stop in from the task manager, but nothing happens. No error messages, process just stays in the list. I try to debug it, but the debugger says:     Unable to attach to the crashing process. The requested operation is not supported.     This happens with VS2008 and some other programs, sometimes.  How to terminate it?
33393
When right clicking an icon on the taskbar Windows displays a small menu. This always contains a button to pin/unpin the application on the taskbar.    I frequently use this menu to open new windows of applications and often accidentally hit the pin/unpin button. Since I do not frequently change the applications which are pinned to my taskbar I do not really need these buttons to be there all the time.  Is there a way to hide these buttons so that I can no longer hit them by accident?
100765
Just recently, the right-click context menus in Windows 7 have been acting in a kind of left-handed way. That is, when possible, the initial menu appears to the left of the mouse pointer. When I hover over a submenu option, the next level of context menu appears to the left of the first and so-on.  Basically, what normally happens when you're right at the right-hand edge of the screen is happening all the time - except when I'm at the left-hand edge. Perhaps it's some kind of left-handed users option, but that doesn't seem likely - more like a right-to-left language option, except that I've never even tried to use a right-to-left language.  I haven't checked every app. for the issue - probably only Windows Explorer, definitely not in Firefox, for the moment that's as far as I've checked.  Scratch that - this affects menu bars as well as context menus. The menus dangle down to the left of the menu-bar item instead of the right, and submenus open to the left too. This seems to apply to most applications, but not too Firefox or Thunderbird.  I find this extremely annoying.  I have no idea how this occurred, though it isn't the only weird glitch I've had in Windows 7 in the last few days - see   I assume there's a setting somewhere that has got changed, but I can't find anything. There's also a chance that I've suffered some kind of registry corruption, so I might need to apply a fix in the registry - not something that scares me, but I need to know what to fix and how.  So - does anyone know what setting has been changed, and how I can fix it?  Also, beyond CCleaner (which I already have), are there any tips on making sure that the registry stays clean and sane?  Finally, both Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Antimalware seem happy that I don't have a malware problem. Should my recent glitches make me doubt that?
47690
This is the situation:     Working on (the next version of) a Unity Quick List editor, I would like to add a reliable way of "restarting" launcher icons. To do so, I need to remove the icon (editing gsettings) and replace it on the same position. So far no problem. However, if the application in question is running, user will possibly lose data, as the application will quit when it's icon is removed from the launcher. What I need is a reliable way to find an application's process name, to let the editor check in the list of running processes if the application is running, and send a warning message to the user that the icon can not be restarted if the application is running.  What I did so far is make the editor look into the desktop file, to read the command, also read the command, stripped from the directory section, and furthermore look into possible remote scripts the desktop file command might refer to, looking for strings starting with "./"  Although the method seems to work well with all applications I tested it on, I have the feeling there must be an easier way to cover the problem in an "all in one" way...  Is there?  Also suggestions to catch more exceptional situations are welcome!
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I've installed Taskbar eliminator, while it works most of the time, alerts being the taskbar back.  I've also installed object dock which can disable the taskbar, object dock appears during window changes.   Has anyone had any luck permanently removing, hiding the taskbar in Windows 7?  Update  I found an application that seems to be working here:    Second update  I took the leap and installed a shell replacement (). So far so good.