Datasheet

SEEING WHICH PROGRAMS THE OTHER USERS ARE RUNNING
15
To start Task Manager and display the Processes page, follow these steps:
1.
Right-click the Taskbar, and then choose Task Manager from the shortcut menu. Windows
displays Task Manager.
2. Click the Processes tab. Windows displays the Processes page, which lists the processes
you’re running.
3.
Click the Show Processes from All Users button, and then authenticate yourself to User
Account Control. Task Manager replaces the Show Processes from All Users button with the
Show Processes from All Users check box, which it selects, and adds to the list all the pro-
cesses that the other users are running as well.
Figure 1.9 shows an example of the Processes page. You can sort the list of processes by any col-
umn by clicking the column heading; click once to sort in ascending order, and click again to sort
in descending order. In the figure, the processes are sorted by the User Name column so that it’s
easy to see which process belongs to which user.
The figure shows only part of the list, but you can see the users Lily and Mick are both run-
ning, and 57 percent of the physical memory is in use. The Mem Usage column lets you see which
programs are using more memory than others. See the sidebar called “Finding Out Which Pro-
cess Belongs to Which Program” for details on how to find out which programs these processes
represent.
In the figure, you’ll see that Windows also has a number of processes open on its own account:
The LOCAL SERVICE account and the NETWORK SERVICE account are each running several
instances of the SVCHOST.EXE (service host) process each, together with various other processes. Not
shown in the figure is the SYSTEM account, which also various processes, including SVCHOST.EXE
and a process called System Idle Process, which indicates what percentage of the available processes
are free. (Having a high percentage for System Idle Process indicates that your computer is handling
its current workload easily.)
Finding Out Which Process Belongs to Which Program
The Processes page of Task Manager is helpful, but only up to a point. The problem you’ll usually face
when looking at the list of processes in Task Manager is that you need to identify which program a par-
ticular process represents—for example, so that you can decide whether to stop the process (as described
later in this chapter).
Some of the other names are readily identifiable. For example, EXPLORER.EXE is the executable for
Windows Explorer, and SIDEBAR.EXE is the executable for the Windows Sidebar. You don’t need to
memorize the mapping of each executable filename to its program, but if you look at Task Manager
now and then, you’ll learn to scan the list of processes and see which is running. This will help you
decide whether you should go ahead and log another user off Windows (as described in the next sec-
tion) or whether doing so will lose valuable data.
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