Datasheet

16
CHAPTER 1 GETTING STARTED WITH WINDOWS VISTA
To start finding out which program corresponds to each executable file, click the Applications tab to
display Task Manager’s Applications page. Right-click a program and choose Go to Process from the
shortcut menu. Task Manager displays the Processes page and selects the process for that program.
That’s easy enough—but you’ll find that there are many more processes running than programs. Try
closing all the programs listed on the Applications page of Task Manager, and you’ll see that many
processes are still running. Turn your attention to the notification area and close as many of the
items shown there as you can: Right-click each icon in turn and choose any Close, Quit, or Exit com-
mand that appears on the shortcut menu. Try stopping any obvious services that you can tempo-
rarily dispense with and see if an associated process disappears. For instance, try closing your
Internet connection or stopping your PC Cards. Did either of those actions lose you a process? Then
you have an idea of what that process does.
Even after you’ve done this, you’ll find that the Processes page lists many other processes. To find
out about these, click the Services tab in Task Manager to view a list of the services that Windows is
running. (A service is a system process that runs automatically—for example, to provide printing
features or network connectivity.) You can right-click a service and choose Go to Process from the
context menu to make Task Manager select the process that belongs to the service. (Some services
don’t allow you to do this.)
If you still can’t identify processes, try searching on the Web. At this writing, one of the best lists is at
http://www.processid.com/processes.html . Failing that, put the process name and “Windows
Vista” into your favorite search engine, and you should turn up plenty of hits.
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