How to determine what applications are running

How do you find which applications are running and how do you shut them down?

 

Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete. This will list all the running applications. If you're using windows XP, you can also switch to the processes tab, which gives you a better idea of what exactly the computer is doing in the background. You can end an application by clicking it to highlight, and pressing the end task button. You can end a process in XP by clicking it and selecting end process. This could be dangerous though, as you could terminate an essential process on your system.

 

How do you get to the processes tab?

 

It should be fairly obvious once you have Task Manager up and running. In fact, it should already be on the Processes tab.

 

Heh, you click the processes tab. If you have windows logon enabled, you may have to press a task manager button first. It shouldn't be difficult. Alternatively, you an press windows key+r (or click start --> run) and type taskmgr and press start. This should bring you directly to the task manager.

Again, excercise caution when terminating a process.

 

Best program I have found to tell you what is running, in REAL time is Process Explorer.

Process Explorer. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4566

 

Crtl-Shift-Esc is my favourite shortcut to get to the task manager in XP