Inside Task Manager with the Original Author
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2023
- How Task Manager was born, how it works, and insider secrets to using it! For information on my book, "Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire": amzn.to/3diQILq
My other channel, join now so you're there for episode 01 of my AudioBook!
/ @davepl
Discord Chat w/ Myself and Subscribers: / discord
Primary Equipment (Amazon Affiliate Links):
* Camera: Sony FX-3 - amzn.to/3w31C0Z
* Camera Lens: 50mm F1.4 Art DG HSM - amzn.to/3kEnYk4
* Microphone: Electro Voice RE 320 - amzn.to/37gL65g
* Teleprompter: Glide Gear TMP 100 - amzn.to/3MN2nlA
* SD Cards: Sony TOUGH - amzn.to/38QZGR9
Earthquake footage from scottsteg: • Microsoft Earthquake
"Footage from 'WarGames' directed by John Badham, produced by MGM/UA Entertainment Co., 1983."
"Footage from 'Highlander' directed by Russell Mulcahy, produced by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, 1986."
"Footage from Evel Knievel's jump at Caesars Palace, broadcast by ABC's Wide World of Sports, 1967."
In this video, clips from 'Highlander' (Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, 1986), 'WarGames' (MGM/UA Entertainment Co., 1983), 'The Simpsons' (Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox Television, Year of episode), and footage of Evel Knievel's jump at Caesars Palace (ABC's Wide World of Sports, 1967) have been used under the Fair Use doctrine for educational purposes. These clips serve to provide real-world examples, illustrate points, and stimulate critical analysis, significantly transforming the original content in the process.
The missing 10th way to start Task Manager:
- Use regedit to change your shell= line from explorer.exe to taskmgr.exe and reboot! - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
You made THE task manager? Jesus Christ, that's something
No, he made the other task manager.
Sorry, I had to do it.... 😂
@@volvo09 😆😆😆
This man is bigger than Jesus, Jesus only gave us bread an wine... Dave gave us Task Manager 😍
You must be new here.
This isn't the first video he has made stating that. He is a pretty decent guy. His name is still in some source code so yes I'm fairly certain he did.
Wish there could be like a hall of fame for programmers. People like Dave are the real super stars.
In a hundred years they will be in textbooks, but for now they are just legends for us in IT and other computer nerds.
@iPriv33 more like it'll be in the training data of some AI we can query lol
you can thank Gates and Jobs for destroying the industry for oligopoly re: open source and credit
You got it all wrong with your sports analogy. For example let's look at today's NBA. There is a lot of superstars playing right now. LeBron, Curry, Gianis, Luca, Jokic, KD... being introduced to hall of fame is next level. It's acknowledgment of their impact on game when they played and acknowledgment of their impact on future generations.
And then there are people like Dave. They live outside of realm of mere mortals. Superstars and hall of famers are just entertainers. Very talented and very hard working people but bottom line is they are here just to entertain us. Their impact on our daily lives, our future and lives of future generations is insignificant when compared to importance of what people like Dave do every day.
Every Microcenter i've been in has a wall with all of the main guys
I worked at Bell Labs in the mid '80s as part of the Unix System V R4 C compiler team. One day when I was working on a port to the Intel i860 processor, I wrote a small assembler debugger because the symbolic debugger was not finished yet. I named my debugger "fred", just because. It soon spread throughout the department, and I would occasionally get a call or email question about it. No problem. Somehow, fred got included on the Unix source tape that ended up being shipped around the world. One day I got an email from someone in Italy asking a question about something that wasn't completely clear in the manual page I had written. I answered the question, then asked how they knew about fred. That's how I found out it had gone out with the source code.
Pretty cool!
Not saying you deserve a Nobel Peace Price for Taskmanager since I'm sure it prevented a lot of anger in the world, but I'm saying that some recipients of that price did less for people's inner peace than you did with creating Taskmanager. Legend.
They gave Obama a Nobel prize for being black, talk about patronizing.
Better him than Kissinger, though that's not saying much.
At least he stopped short of calling it Dave's Tool
😂😅. @dancroitoru364
Task Manager has saved me more times than I could possibly count. Great job. I'm grateful for your work!
It’s a really useful and reliable tool.
Also built right into Windows. That’s a rare combination of things to see.
yes, me too.
and the argument, that it is overly nerdy? let's compare it to a car. sure, you want to have a comfortable car. it is nice to drive it. but at some point, you need to look under the hood. and there is the engine, the battery, the other components, etc.
so? it is a tool that really helps but isn't the most beautiful one...
It's the one thing I truly miss whenever I'm using Linux instead. No distro I've found has a feature even remotely comparable.
Agreed. I have been using Task Manager from W95 right up to W10. I pretty much keep it running 24/7 on the task-bar, so I can kill any process that gets out of hand, or to simply monitor system resources. BRILLIANT addition to the OS, and I thank you - not that my one single voice matters - for having it included in the OS. One of Windoze's most useful things, even up to and including today.
@@VauxhallViva1975 on an older laptop with overheating issues, I used taskmanager for something slightly different: I actually put some processes that were causing massive loads on a lower priority and found a system setting where I could reduce the overall CPU load.
this made overheating less of a problem without sacrificing speed.
A modern OS without a task manager is just unthinkable, and it's one of the few things in Windows 11 that still focuses on functionality over form. Quite a legacy you built there.
doesnt even tell me what all is running. you must not know much about computers. its even worse in the lgbtpedo age of jeffery epstein /bill gates windows 10/11. at least older windows allowed you to see things. even if some were hidden behind the word sys32, which is pretty pedo like to have to hide i think people who control this tech should be thrown into car crushers.i bet if pedotubes supreme race didnt own everything i could run a pool an over 50% of people would say ibll gates should be excommunicated from earth. im not sure i see things the way you easter bunny an santa clause worshippin npc do.
Microsoft didn’t invent the idea. All Unix and RTOS’s have had them way before Microsoft implemented it. Dave did good work for sure but it’s not a new idea.
@@pentachronic @SkeletonBill didn't even say that the whole idea was from him. Just that he built it in a way that is legendary nowadays, and I too think that he deserves all the credit and respect he gets for this.
@maksa22242 yeah I couldn't imagine using windows without the ability to kill stuff when it freezes up lol...
Its functionality is garbage.
I’ve only use task manager about 62,000 times.
TH-cam is so cool. This is my favorite kind of content. Over the years, I’ve learned from the horses mouth about so many things that I’ve used my whole life. It’s just such a interesting, feeling taking something that feels so huge corporation and breaking it down to a single person. Thanks.
FYI, if anybody is looking for another really cool insider story. Check out the story of crash bandicoot and the PlayStation. Amazing story of how they reverse engineered and hacked into the PlayStation from the game itself in order to make the game much bigger than it should’ve been and perform much better than other games.
I've used it 62,001 times! I win! 😁😆
I have task manager set to immediately open when i start my computer.
@@tlpineapple1 how would you do that?
@@o45032put it on run at start up in taskmanager
Task manager; the most reliable asset in Windows when all of your media programs crash and lock up👌🏽you’re a gift, sir. Thank you
Everything in existence: ceases to respond.
TASKMANAGER : You have 2 seconds to comply.
I hope it says "Father of Task Manager" on your business card. My company once worked with the "Father of Uninstall" who wrote the uninstall sequence for Windows apps. Still to this day probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen on a business card
maybe it says "kill all children" too
thanks for making this mr dave i use windows now
You should be embarrassed not proud.
You sound 70 years old
The Uninstall would leave half of the files and registry entries on harddisk,would never hire the "Father of Uninstall"
This might sound insane, but when you said you wrote the Task Manager, I had this feeling like you're the biggest celebrity in the world (to me). Your work has DEFINITELY stood the test of time, and you've saved millions of people hundreds of hours with it. Cheers!
Hopefully hundreds of hours EACH
He literally made Windows useable....
Huge admirations to you and your work making that program working until now, and btw i am pretty shure it will for 100 more years Job well done !
i feel the same way, I got a chance to work with the lawyer who convinced Bill Gates to license microsoft when he was a jr law associate at his firm. He ended up writing me a beautiful recommendation that Im sure would get a felon the job.
Well, my mom thinks so. But that's about it :-)
My friends and I used to play a game on LAN partys which consisted of taking turns ending processes in Task Manager until your system crashes.
Like a "Last Task Manager standing".
Anyway thanks for your service, Dave! I am glad you came up with that sweet little program.
This sounds like fun :D
this is the best idea ive heard in a long long time
Redmond Roulette?
@@allah_2 Thank you, yeah it was hella fun.
No day has gone by without me opening Task Manager at least once. Setting startup programs, Fixing audiodg issues, Ending stubborn programs, Monitoring system components, etc. You are my hero.
That program did more to make PCs usable for the average person than nearly anything else, it was a masterclass in simple, powerful, and user friendly software design
The CREATOR OF IT condoned my use of Ctrl+Shift+Escape. I feel so validated. I love you.
Now you can stop being mocked among your circle????
@@quantumblur_3145 correct.
i always use this keyboard shortcut to access it too!
it was interesting to hear how that was added to the Windows Logon process, since it should always be running.
I love the deep-dive esoteric coding style, not including libraries to maintain a light footprint. And, "it's pointless to pretend you can't do that, so Task Manager just does it for you."
I use CTRL+ALT+DEL
Task Manager is one of the single most important tools in the OS ever created. Well done!
Yeah agreed, I can't believe that their were people trying to get it removed in the beginning. What a loss that would have been. Imagine how much damage idiots can do if no one stops them.
Only because windows is a piece of shit, you should see what Linux can do
@deadlock_problem Could you perhaps find something better to do with your life other than going around being a missionary for an operating system?
Yeah linux is good if you're pretty experienced with this kind of stuff butttt if you're just the average user go windows.@@deadlock_problem
@@lilmonix3404ever🤣🤣🤣🤣 🤣🤣🤣😭😭😭🤣 He has right. Windows will soon be gone. Its to much ineffective OS and so many problems with it. Also not stabil. Company to Mac and Linux operativsystem. Windows is far behind.
You made the most essential tool on a computer. Ive used this thoroughly for my entirety of my windows and even Mac use, windows being first. Thank you for your skill and talent I owe you big time
Plus the video is dope, haha right on!-
Dave should thank the other Windows devs for making the OS unreliable😂
I kid, I kid
Don't belittle what you've done!
There's been so many computer sessions that went to hell and the only save was the task manager. You help me monitor my computers basic health and strains it's under. That's magic. I still use the task manager regularly to monitor various aspects of my experience.
Thank you man, so much.
Also, he's the reason why i can't move windows to linux. I genuinely admire him
You've saved me from many system lockups and a potential ass-whooping from my parents when they walked in on me viewing naughty materials that wouldn't close properly without Task Manager. You're the hero we needed, but the one we don't deserve!
would’ve just unplugged the computer at that point lmao
Why couldn't those sites close properly, were they infected with viruses and Trojans?
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 probably. And windows 95/98 machines weren't exactly the best with performance and handling pop-ups. XD
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 Most likely those websites that lock your browser with infinite popups, and popup blockers used to not be as effective.
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 Some sites can be so heavy they take a decent while to close, task manager forces the entire browser to close, which even if it doesnt close the site instantly it'll make the browser black screen on the spot.
For all the faults Windows has had over the years, the Task Manager was always a feature I was tremendously grateful for. Thank you sir!
@@TheGreyLineMatters prime example of a basement dwelling Linux fanboy, take a shower my man
@@TheGreyLineMatters And Linux still haven't figured out how to make system updates without braking entire drivers and other functionalities to make it user friendly
@@MrGTAmodsgermanWhat, there have been plenty of Windows updates that have bricked or crippled many machines. Win NT left a navy ship dead in the water in the 90s.
You're very welcome! It's flattering to know that someone I wrote so long ago, and put my best effort into, has had such staying power!
@@MrGTAmodsgermanskill issue
You have not only managed my tasks, but you have managed my heart!
Hopefully not to end it 😅💔
@@Inda1 If that happens I hope it can be restarted
As someone who works in IT support, Task Manager is one of the most basic and useful tools of my trade. Thank you for adding this invaluable tool!
A few thoughts I didn't mention in the video that might be of interest: I'm not a UI designer. I make good UI for me, but not for "regular people". I once tried to design the Photos UI and it looked like Visual Studio 6, since I'm a "power user" but it wouldn't be a good way to do it for all Windows users, for example.
But Task Manager was one of those cases where the thing I wanted turned out to be something that a lot of other people wanted too. Most things require a good designer, but I think they'd come at the problem very differently. So this was perhaps a unique case of where having an engineer who understood the system make the UI, rather than the user experience folks dictating what you could do... if that makes sense.
It's by no means unique, but I think the defensive programming approach I took within it has proved useful in the long run, since Task Manager is pretty well respected for being robust. It takes extra time and effort to handle every error case gracefully, and to check every return value, etc... but that's why you never see it get into a bad state. If you ever get "Task Manager (Not Responding)", at least in the older versions of Windows, I'd almost guarantee the system itself is borked at that point, and not Task Manager. Small consolation when it's your machine, though, I know!
Long story short, I made it for me, and I'm super grateful that so many others have found it useful over so long a period of time!
That's how the best programs with the best UIs are created: a single person writing single program that they want to use.
As someone who mostly moved to Linux some time ago, I think its given me more appreciation for task manager as its one of the places where things are a lot more fiddly to do on Linux. The irony being that almost everywhere else in Windows, things have gone backwards for what seems the reason you described, its UI focused not "what does a user getting to this point NEED". The sheer number of different places in Windows you can access network settings for example, when the thing you want to change is still hidden in device manager.
May I have one question, please?
How different is the taskmgr from windows 7 compared to the original one from windows NT?
I have a suspicion that they are mostly the same thing.
As a current Sys Admin, I can say that Task Manager is probably the single most useful thing, Powershell probably being the only thing I'd put above it, included in Windows so thanks for the work you did 27 years ago when I was still a toddler lol
Can you make a C++ programming series Dave? Would really appreciate it mate
I still fondly remember how, even on the most broken, messed up or OOM Windows XP, Task Manager was the _one_ thing that _never_ let me down.
I always appreciate when people go the extra mile to do their job not only right but extremely well, and here the perfectionism truly shows :)
if task manager locks up, you know its time for a format and reinstall :D
Or just give him a call on his home number! lol
@@tehs3raph1m til it's a hardware issue and you get a bsod even on a different ssd/ram combo :p t540p can't open the preformance tab anymore but works great still for most things, better than a cheap laptop from Walmart even still for day to day tasks.
Hear hear. Task Manager was the last word. If the problem locked up Task Manager, you know it was a serious problem
TH-cam algorithm brought me here, I watched this video from you, and then another, and then another, and another... My GOSH your videos are so interesting! I normally wouldn't be very interested in someone rambling in front of a camera for 20 minutes, but the things you talk about related to the early days of Windows development or even modern Windows systems, and THE WAY in which you explain everything, something about it all is just so captivating. Keep it up!
As much as I've complained about Windows over the years, I have no idea how something so complex could ever work as well as it does. Very interesting to hear from someone directly involved in such development. Well done!
Your comment about "End Process" vs. "Kill Task" reminded me of something. Years back I worked for a company that makes automated blood testing machines for medical laboratories. One product's software would, now and then, pop up a message: "Child is killed." This caused some consternation among our customers as a report of a child dying is rather a big deal when you work in a hospital. It caused more than a few calls to product support before the software group fixed it.
lol heard this before before
That’s hilarious 😂
Was the kid ok?
Nope dead.@@annoyingbstard9407
@@annoyingbstard9407 sh-she died Jill
You know you’re doing something right when Dave Cutler approves. Been a big fan of CTRL+SHIFT+ESC for a long time but I wasn’t aware of holding CTRL whilst launching a new task. Great little hidden feature!
I wasn't aware either, but never needed it. I do have the command line on a keyboard shortcut and as an Explorer context menu item, though.
this doesn't seem to work currently on Windows 10 from login screen.
@@xeridea You can't launch Task manager from the logon screen because that would let you bypass nearly all the system's security measures.
@@eDoc2020 And the problem would be!
@@stephenhunter70 Are you asking? The login screen runs as SYSTEM so if you get task manager you can easily launch a full privilege command prompt.
The end task function could also be used to stop services, or the process list can reveal incriminating information.
Good thing you included a code that would make applications suddenly work fine when you fire up Task Manager. Fear will keep them in line!
Thanks man. Your work has is amazing and Task Manager has always been there for me to save the day in my long IT career. Thank you!
I hope every programmer from your era makes videos like this. So many amazing stories
It’s wild how robust the QA process was, yet the initial releases were still so buggy. I think it really goes to show the true complexity of an operating system. All that time and energy spent to QA yet things still got through
It's really not that complex when you make it work and not push BS on your consumer. Have you seen windows 11? full of ad's wtf ?
@@Bewefau Everything in capitalism follows 3 phases:
Birth - A new thing is made.
Growth - Wow it's great here lets get as many users as possible. (Typically the best phase for the customer)
Ravage for profit - Ok putting more money into the product won't increase user acquisition. It's now time to extract as much money as possible from the product.
We are now in phase 3. It won't get better, only worse.
these guy's didn't spend their time selling dsa courses
@@king6530 Nirsoft never continued to phase 3, which is why Nirsoft software will always be my favorite!
@@king6530 the sad part is that we should be going back to phase 1 and birthing new technology. Instead we seem to put most of our recourses into iterating on existing technology, not truly creating new stuff. AI is the most fitting ‘new technology’ to be big right now. It just spits out existing shit really fast and isn’t truly creating anything new.
I’m so happy that there were employees around in that era that challenged the over-simplification of the OS. Catering to the power user while still making the OS approachable is what made Windows stand out. Thank you for your hard work on this.
Very good comment, I thought the same, when I watched this video! I started in the windows 3.0 times, and I loved the many ways, that you could change soo many things without knowing much about programming. And that's basically, why I hate the secretive, closed down, restricted Apple ecosystem to this day. I know these machines work very relieable, but my windows machines do that as well - and I can tweak them to behave like I feel is convenient. Apple decides that for you. I got Chills, when David listed the 10 ways how you can start the task manager. I love that freedom!
I still remember how I went after a virus, that shut down my computer after a little period of time - so at startup I quickly started the task manager, closed the malicious process - and then I had plenty of time to set the machine back to a former state, before it had been infecting my computer. Windows Vista had the most powerful "set all pragrams back" to a certain time stamp, removing EVERYTHING that had been installed in between. Even the most hidden things, but left all static data alone. I loved Vista for its exceptional stability as much as I loved XP before.
We probably would've gotten that asinine thing mac os has whereby you can't see the transfer speed in the transfer dialogue.
I understand why people want over-simplified UI, but that's where apple comes in 😂
@@genius1a if you need a ui to change your desktop and you are a windows user you are not a power user you are a Redditor.
@@user-fr2fm3ri3w Oh, you are absolutely right! I always referred to myself as a "DAU". That's a german abbreviation for "Dümmster Anzunehmender User" which translates to "most stupid user imaginable". I USE Windows, and so far all experiments to switch to other ecosystems like Linux, OS 2 and Mac OS have failed miserably. When I have to switch to a new computer, I take 2 to 3 days to heavily modify it (install ancient and new special programs and little helpers, modify the UI to my needs) and then I use it for at least 5 years. If it works. Lately I purchased a high end Dell Laptop, that refused to work the way I need it (some of the ancient programs crashed). Its the most expensive and most powerful machine I own, but it got downgraded to be a Laser Cutter Server, because it was the only spare machine I had. The 13 inch 4K Dell Laptop of the same era has to fill the gap until I have the money to start a new approach with a different new machine.
This is fascinating! As a long long time Windows user, it's very interesting to hear these stories from a creator.
Thank you Dave. I've used your stuff as a Windows user all my life. Today I'm a hobbyist game dev and this is a master class in how to build something critical that doesn't break when you kick it. I've ranted at tons of programs and features through my short life, but Task Manager has never been one of them. I've always intuitively counted on it as my "ace in the hole," and I've never been wrong. It's fascinating to see how many features have been built into it to make it lightweight, accessible from any imaginable state, and both honest and true as much as it can be. Great video, and I laughed so many times!
Holy cow i'm in this exact same case!
Used it for 25+ years as a user/IT, and now I look at it code wise, in the endless quest of writing better code...
As a lifetime IT Support on personal and professional level, I can't express how grateful we're for your service to humanity.
Honestly Task manager is the #1 tool I use to correctly troubleshoot any kind of issue. Thanks to the reliability and exstensive features of it, you just know you'll solve the issue eventually.
Again, thank you for your service in making IT Support more achievable on a daily basis. ❤
Seconded. No hesitation at all!
I just came on to make a similar comment. No way my life would’ve been easy without it. And it makes you look like a magician when you access it and use it correctly against a layman.
The task manager has been immensely useful through the years. I can’t thank you enough for your work.
@Jk he could have also not thought of it! I feel comfortable thanking him for it. Thanks to his work I benefited and I'm thanking his contribution to my productivity and for making windows a better product. Of course I paid for it, but it's thanks to people Iike him I continue to use windows every day
Great Work! It’s hard to overstate how much more comfortable the usage of windows is through task manager
I chuckled when you mentioned being able to start task manager from the login screen. That actually saved my ass a few months ago when my computer went nuts and for some reason my desktop became totally unusable. I'll spare you the details, but just know that you singlehandedly saved me from a devastating loss of very important data. Thank you, Dave!
The fact that wrote task manager makes you a minor celebrity in my book. I went from win3.1 to nt4 and when i discovered task manager, it blew my mind. Its the first place i go for troubleshooting. And it has helped me resolve so many problems over the years. I love it, Dave!
Yeah I find it weirder and weirder it's next impossible to know the names of wrote the tools we use and rely on everyday because they are not baked into the UI or about menu.
I strongly believe that Taskmgr is what kept Windows users patient about the Os through it's early years, users felt always they had this powerfull tool as their last resort to "terminate" all sorts of misfunction and that's what software craft is all about. Congratulation Sir, you may talk modestly about it but for us it's a lifetime achievement and you're a Legend.
I agree. Sometimes Chrome crashed, or Microsoft office, and Task Manager helped with closing out of the programs. Plus also, the CPU and RAM usage graphs are pretty cool. The Wi-Fi speed graph is useful also.
Yep, and being able to restart with two CTRL ALT DELs (although man that was annoying when you only meant to press it once)
Bingo - humans love to have some agency.
@@mikelastname ok redditor
I find that it's still one of the only reasons why the OS is semi sustainable to use in long multipurpose sessions... Windows resource management is alright, but still not bulletproof on its own.
You air have saved the day more times than I can count. This video was wildly entertaining and the hidden little secrets were most notable. Thanks for the video.
So cool! One of my favourite Windows application ever!
That tool has helped me so many times!
Thank you and greetings from Portugal.
My first time watching one of your videos, and I feel like I've met a rockstar! So cool that you wrote the OG Task Manager! 👍😊
Welcome aboard!
Really brilliant and cool indeed
@@DavesGarageyou are exactly what I aspire to become in the future. Even if I don't get to contribute something as huge as you have, I hope I can tell my children in the future about things I made that brought a positive impact to the world
If every developer took that much care and pride in their work, the world would be a very different place.
Oh, hi Mark!
*Says someone who has no idea how programming is done*
@@AndroWax-qy8ky I will graduate next year as a software engineer, so I know a thing are two about programming.
@@Luzgar Working as a developer is different from just studying development. In the real world you have people chasing you to deliver yesterday and stuff is not "graded" as long as it works. Code quality does not matter to the people who talk to clients, the only care about delivering.
@@p003872 I know, that's why I'm saying that. What's your point ?
Wait, the task manager...
The TASK MANAGER that I used to turn off the system32 accidentally when I saw the CPU usage stupidly high ?
Sir... You cooked something, you cooked something, and I see it as a marvelous gemstone.
Well, love your work. First time I saw a colleague restoring a crashed explorer via task manager my mind was blown. It's one of my favourite parts of windows and it always served me well.
You absolute legend. Force quitting programs in task manager was probably my first introduction to how computers really work as a child
And still useful to this day when some of the official software at my workplace misbehaves.
Task Manager has been the single most consistently great tool with every Windows OS I've ever used.
Thank you for creating this thing.
True. And that means MS will probably remove or hide it eventually. :(
@@Version135 It's not going anywhere. It may morph over time, but it has proven invaluable in saving peoples' systems when they get out of whack.
Gotta say, youre a real hero not only to just computer users everywhere but especially to those of us with not-so-powerful computers!! Cant imagine how many crashes its definitely saved me from lmao
so, you have been affecting my life daily indirectly since 1999-2000 when i got my first computer, awesome. Thanks! you have made life easier for me!
I used to volunteer at my kid's school and teach computers to the 3rd graders and so on. Ironically, the admin policy on all the computers prohibited task manager entirely, which was always annoying to me!
As a random recollection, this was in the XP days. The kids all knew I worked for Microsoft, but nobody cared because around here lots of people do! But when the kids found out I'd worked on Pinball, it gave me some serious cred with the 8 year olds :-).
As always, I like to note that the pinball game shipped first for Win95, I did the port/re-write of it for what shipped in Windows itself. Which meant rewriting the x86 asm parts in C, porting it to MIPS, etc... but all the graphics and design was there before I got there!
My pastime in computer science class at high school was always finding ways to abuse the badly made user rights to go where I shouldn't. Like launching a disabled task manager or the group policies, maybe even trying to look at the teachers' resource folder.
@@RomanTheNotARoman sameee
Hey Dave. Excellent video. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to have a TIX clock in the background there? It looks like it!
I still have pinball on windows 11 and linux haha
When are you going to update it to run fullscreen on large resolutions though? Patch is 15 years overdue
It always feels so distant as if these core system concepts were created by intricate wizards hiding in an underground headquarter whilst never showing themselves to the public, but seeing you talk about it makes me appreciate it more
He's the king wizard, he's allowed to leave.
This was a great watch! Thank you for your creation.
this was insanely cool and informative! thanks dave ! :)
Dave. Don’t know if you’ll see this but as a small time computer repair tech, I’ve always appreciated how lightweight and fast the early derivatives of your work was in XP, and at home as a teen your inclusion of the ability to end Explorer.exe and manually restart it was super convenient when after usually alt-tabbing out of a game, on the rare occasion Windows Explorer would lockup. I appreciate the behind the scenes details for an important component of the OS.
Oh yeah, even today being able to close the Explorer.exe has been a blessing. I'm thankful they never added arbitrary limitations besides crazy ones that can crash the whole os. Unfortunately, I don't like that with Task Manager I can't set the CPU core affinity and process priority and it saves it after system or process restart.
Thanks! Keeping it lightweight was a major goal, as we were quite memory constrained at the time. Now I have 32 cores and 128GB!
@@DavesGarage Thanks, task manager has saved so much work from being lost!
What was the reasoning behind its use, first being deployed on NT?
Closing and restarting explorer.exe has been my go to tech tip for years
You know you have developed a masterpiece, when your software is running close to 3 decades.
Hats off to you sir!
You're the one responsible for ctrl+shift+esc?
👏 You have my personal thanks.
Love your work Dave!!❤
I'm a Linux engineer. It's difficult to imagine what it was like working in windows development at that time. Respect.
bro you forget about linux tranaldo writing linux kerneal himself alone
@@ReverseEngineering-gv8bu No man I was commenting specifically on how I imagine the windows development environment to have been at that time. Linus Torvalds was his name, and I have tons of respect for his work.
brutal, horrific and awful.. just like modern times..
Linux has to be one of the dumbest and impractical systems ever. Takes 10x longer to achieve anything practical that you could easily do in win98 😂
@@ChessJourneyman Clearly coming from someone that never touched Linux.
From Win95 onward, TaskManager is my single most-used tool in the Windows suite, and in these days of removing the user from the OE, I feel like it's the last simple thing left that I can use to monitor what the software is doing. Thanks for years of me watching the CPU spike :D
Aww come on. Windows ain't that bad that you need to use it all the time =þ
Yeah, I leave it running most of the time.
@schroeder9999, I mean, I do the same thing in Linux too, so like. It's just a useful kind of tool. I wish the (default) one in ubuntu showed a graph of disk access/usage, though.
Windows explorer...
@@AbdallahMehiz Huh, maybe ...
HOLYCOW Dave ! its been yrszzzz! sum 40++yrs now ,glad you still doing :) you may have forgotten that hyper longhaird young man who did remote from B Ross's from Saginaw Michigan from back then :) besafe man!
I just want to say, thank you Dave! I've been using Windows since 3.1 era and the Task Manager is my favorite part of the OS. I feel like it's the same as if you open the hood of your car and take a look inside trying to find something wrong. It's super helpful to find strange faults happening, and I can't think of how I could use Windows without it. Just weeks ago I found the origin of a problem on my brother's laptop using Task Manager info. Super helpful.
you are genious how you use window 3. good to see you live
The task manager is perhaps one of the most useful and powerful tools the Windows user could ask for and all thanks to this man! I can't thank you enough
I've never hit subscribed so fast. Thank you so much for what you have given us.
%100 the best thing I've seen today, and thank you for sharing with us. Did not know there was a face behind the task manager.
10:14 is the best joke I've heard in a while
Those annectotes on Task Manager and Windows history are very interesting as they reveal aspects of Windows' history that have never been shared. I hope you can share more videos like those in the future Dave!
annecdote
Tools like Task Manager are what gives me the feeling of control and ownership over the device. I really miss them on more "modern" smart devices and phones!
I just wanna say that you're the reason I was able to find the RAT on my laptop. If it wasn't for task manager, I wouldn't have been able to locate the process. Thanks, man.
The Windows Task Manager is arguably the most used piece of software in Windows OS. In may case Task Manager is always open and ready to be utilized wherever reason arise. Its safe to say I'm a heavy Task Manager user. Dave you played your part in computer history and you will always be remembered for your contribution.
Wow Dave as a fellow developer it was interesting hearing your story. Developers going rogue and designing something technical and nerdy that is beyond beneficial is a lost art! Wild west as you called it!
So true, i miss the days when the Dev guys were visionaries for "what's next" and "what should be". Now every thing is a money grab iteration for something that already exists. There really hasn't been anything new in Tech that has shifted they way we do things in years.
We're all like that when we're Young Guns... We just love to code and innovate.
But the reasons it's not good for you is:
1) You direct boss will feel threatened by your talent and subvert your career,
2) You just gave away your million dollar idea away to a corp that wants to replace you with anyone cheaper they can find.
In the beginning of the video he says many were opposed to his project being included... those were the snakes seeking to elevate their careers only, and supress all others.
Microsoft treated me well! No complaints!
@@GregMoress Do bosses really feel threatened like that? I'm sure it happens, but in my experience, most of my bosses liked it when their employees innovate. It looks great on their resume if they can say they "led the team that developed Windows Task Manager".
@@monkemode8128 It's not at all uncommon for the narcisistic personality-types to strive to have power, so they see all others as threats.
They don't hide this, so it will be easy enough to spot if you keep an eye open for it.
But I've had a few really good bosses too.
Man i love the task manager. Such a useful program. Managed to catch a few viruses using it by finding the randomly named file and finding its location. Thank you :)
Thanks for sharing this glorious inside view with us, Sir !! That reminds me this moto:
"- You're not done when it works, you're done when it's right. "
Uncle Bob
TH-cam recommendations once again steering me towards absolute legends like yourself. Beyond grateful that you share stories and experiences for everyone.
I work for a major university at their help desk. We have over 33,000 employees. I handle on average 40 -60 calls a day. I use task manager on 60-70% the most often reason is to check the liars, I mean callers, uptime. Which then usually leads to the proverbial "did you restart?" (yes, they did three months ago) Thank you for one of if not the most important Windows tools EVER! Ctr+Alt+Delete for life!
not Ctrl+Shift+Esc...............? why go through the extra screen if you just need task manager?
@@supremebuffalo6322 I just right click the task bar and click on task manager myself. I find it fastest.
YES, they always say they restarted.
To be fair, many of them do click shutdown, then turn it back on, and that's a restart to them... but with fast startup it never actually shut down.
@@supremebuffalo6322 old school lol
@@jeremypilot1015damn ... Imagine
So many years using Windows now the face behind the Task Manager. Your helicopter story is gold. Subscribed and look forward more story’s behind what is part of modern culture, Windows.
Task Manager is one of those tools that I am so comfortable with that it almost seems primitive, like a hammer. That's not to say that Task Manager is primitive, it just feels like a foundational tool at this point. And I never thought I'd see the man who made the thing. It's like meeting the guy who invented the hammer, very bizarre haha
10:46 that joke 😂 basically Microsoft forum response from official rep even today
Your version was and always is gonna be the best!
Started Task manager more often than Windows itself. You freaking legend with eye for detail. You truly rule, props from another developer.
Task Manager is the most useful tool I constantly use. As an administrator of several Windows servers I love that I can remote in pop open the task manager and figure things out quickly. Even back in the windows 95 days and before it was still very useful in figuring out what the heck the computer was doing. Thank you Dave! You created a tool that I bet has helped so many administrators save so much time.
The task manager is one of my favorite tools in all of windows, ever made.
Killing explorer.exe and then being able to launch it again has so many beneficial uses when a machine is bogged down and you don’t want to restart it.
Thanks for this. As someone who’s been a systems administrator at more than one company, it’s my first go to when I need to figure out what’s going on
this is also what i do back in my kid days haha now it dont happens tech this days are fast
Thats actuallly insane youre the creator. You know you changed computing for all of humanity. Thank you so much seriously man you are a Genius!
Task manager is one of the greatest things windows has , i cant count how many times my computer freezed and only was fixed by terminating programs in task manager , or alot of times i encountered malware and i could locate their tasks and find them there . Thank you sir
Sometimes, to truly fix the problem, you must 9:03
8:53 …which gave us the name _Kill ALL Children_ function. Lol that has a wild ring to it.
Really enjoyed watching this!
In my XP and Win7 days , All the times I had my game crash, or bugged up a modification. ctrl alt del saved the day , most the time. Much like that one tool in your box you always grab. Cool behind the scenes video. Thanks for making this
I didn't know CTRL+SHIFT+ESC was a winlogon hook! That's nifty.
I also really like the bits about how it is built to do everything in its power to bring up a working Task Manager and help you rescue your system if you REAAAAAAALLY need to
I couldn't imagine windows without task manager. I think it was a big part of why I was the type of kid teaching myself how to write HTML at 9 years old back in the 90s. Just having all that information right there at my fingertips was the most fascinating thing and was definitely a big part of what got me "into" computers.
Never thought I'd run into a TH-cam video from the guy who wrote the program, but genuinely - good job, and thank you!
your first paragraph hits home really 🙏
It's still a life saving today as we never know when a Windows app will decide to not run anymore and rebooting is not always an option. Thanks for putting it together.
Thanks Dave. You smashed it brother!
One more piece of trivia... a couple of years ago I tracked down and conneccted with the author of htop so we could chat. His name is Porto Alegre and I still think htop under Linux is the most amazing console based app I've ever seen!
13:00 it's more than just "Bad PR" it's a security hazard and you know it
Htop and taskmgr devs, literal meeting between legends
@@ko-Daeguif you play around in taskmgr while having unsaved work its kinda your fault if you loose it hehe. Crashing the system is an annoyance risk at most
I hope you read this, I just realized you can finally shed some light at something about the task manager that bugged me for 15 years.
This ended up making several uni professors scratch their heads.
Back when XP was the king, I was at uni studying computer science. I used Linux mostly, but during the classes we used Windows because that was what they had.
I was so annoyed by long compilation times of my assignments that I started to fiddle around with timing the code compilation, trying to optimize it.
I wanted to make sure nothing else steals the cpu time, so i used the task manager to find processes and close what i could as a normal user
At some point i forgot to close the task manager while my timed compilation was running, and... it was faster...
I called my friend and said anecdotally, look, he is afraid, it goes faster when i show it who's the boss, and my friend said he noticed it too but dismissed it as placebo.
So we ran more tests. Several hours over several weeks. We switched to prime number stress tests because they were more deterministic.
We were right, having a task manager running did make other processes run faster, by amount larger than the error margin.
We showed the results to one of our professors, who at first thought we are joking, but we showed him the testing procedures and compiled performance statistic graphs, and he was like "can I borrow this?"
Long story short, we narrowed this down to an issue with process priorities, where Windows seemed to slow down when all the processes had normal or lower priority, we thought this was a bug in the kernel, and we assumed that windows had "absolute" process priority buckets instead of normalizing priorities and using them relatively like Linux, but we couldn't really prove it.
BUMP. Come on DAVE this man waited 15 years, we need an answer.
We need answers. FBI Open up
That sounds interesting!
My daily BUMP.
Has it been 24 hrs? BUMP
Thank you Sir! TM is a legendary tool that I couldn’t live without back when I was using Windows.
Good job, Dave! Thank you!
Forget the critics, Dave! You designed task manager with user control as a top priority. It's up to the user to understand and use their PC correctly. Now all we've got is less and less control available to the user, and endless hoops to jump through (or not) to do what we used to take for granted.
No, it's not up to the user to be tech people and understand and use their PC correctly, but it's also not up to devs to treat users like infants and make Fisher-Price systems. The correct solution is to DEFAULT to safe but allow users to CHOOSE to change things. This works best with GOOD UI/UX to make it hard to accidentally change things and to make it easy to undo changes. Sadly, Big Tech fails at all of these steps these days. 🤦
@@I.____.....__...__ Yup, a car engine has a hood but you have to know where the latch(es) is to touch the battery or the running engine.
I don't have less control of my windows 11 installation that I did my xp system 20 or whenever years ago. If your windows experience is different, that's a you problem.
@@I.____.....__...__ It's so bad that you can't even use non-store extensions in 99% of browsers,
without receiving a debility warning at startup, which cannot be turned off in any way,
they literally lead users by the hand...
@@I.____.....__...__ I have a few self-written extensions to perform specific small functions and I do not want to publish them in their store, but damn it, even in the dev version they continue to get this notification
you have installed an extension not from the store blah blah blah
it can be dangerous blah blah blah, please turn it off blah blah blah... Damn it, even my parents aren't that boring...
I've been a hardcore task manager lover for decades. All of this was just me nodding until you mentioned CTRL+SHIFT+ESC... I love it! I've learned something new today! Thanks Dave!
the task manager has helped me countless of times❤ thank you for making it
I am blessed to see you and hear your thoughts. Thank You.
Task Manager has been the single most reliable tool in everyone's tool box. It is a masterpiece and a life saver, thank you and Mark for all you have done in making everyone's lives that much easier.
It's unreal seeing the creator of the software that's served so many on TH-cam. People who make the little things we use everyday don't get nearly a fraction of the credit they deserve! Thank you for sharing the creation story of Task Manager. An essential for both a newbie and power user on windows!