Sunday, 9 December 2012

The Hidden Diagnostic Panel


You probably already know about the Control Panel where Windows lets you change most of its settings, but did you know that there’s also a hidden diagnostic panel that tells you what’s going on with your computer right now?

It’s only accessible to those who know the special key combination: hold down Ctrl and Alt and then quickly press and release Delete. Go ahead, try it right now. CTRL, ALT, DEL.

This task manager includes all sorts of information about what programs are running, how much computer processing they’re using, how much network traffic your computer is running. You can use the buttons to force programs to quit and perform other important operations.

The most useful thing you can do with the task manager is find programs that are using too much computer processing (CPU) and force them to quit (if you don’t need them). For example, sometimes Web browsers or the Adobe Flash player will break and try to use all of your CPU—if that’s the case, simply find the program, highlight it, and click Force Quit.

You can also restart explorer.exe when all your desktop icons and task bar disappear.

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