Kernel Times, What are they?

I noticed in the XP Task Manager that there is an option in the view tab to show kernel times. What exactly are they and what do they mean?

 

Kernel or priveleged mode processes have direct control over hardware and memeory while user mode processes(application) are regulated by the OS.Kernel processes are responsible for controling various process and their memory resources so that multi processesing becomes efficent.Some graphic intensive or input/output intensive apps may run in kernel mode,but this is an exception.Basically the kernel times are cpu usage by the OS kernel.

 

Thanks.