Windows Task Manager.......can someone advise on how to interpert the information?

[RC]

I was wondering if someone could advise me about:

Totals
Handles
Threads
Processes

Threads - I've no idea. Processes would be "programs" running, right?

For Physical Memory I understand Total and Available but what does
System Cache indicate? As long as there is some Available that is
good, right?

Commit Charge Kernal Memory
Total Total
Limit Paged
Peak Nonpaged

Ok, I'm clueless here. I don't know what it means or what it tells
me. I THINK I read something somewhere that said certain numbers or
ratios indicated a need for more RAM.

I'll also be searching the web for this info, but if someone has a
firm enough grasp of this subject matter to assist me, I would greatly
appreciate it.


One last thing:
Sometimes when I run a program, the program seems to take forever to
do its thing, YET, when I check the Windows Task Manager, under
processes, I see that the System Idle Process is between 80-95% which
tells me the computer is doing a whole lot of nothing. How can the
System Idle Process be so high if the computer is dragging?

Thank You

RC

 

[John Doe]

I was wondering if someone could advise me about:

Totals
Handles
Threads
Processes

Threads - I've no idea. Processes would be "programs" running,
right?

That might be a little bit too involved anyway.

For Physical Memory I understand Total and Available but what does
System Cache indicate?

I don't know.

As long as there is some Available that is
good, right?

Commit Charge Kernal Memory
Total Total
Limit Paged
Peak Nonpaged

Again, maybe too involved.

Ok, I'm clueless here. I don't know what it means or what it
tells me. I THINK I read something somewhere that said certain
numbers or ratios indicated a need for more RAM.

I'll also be searching the web for this info, but if someone has
a firm enough grasp of this subject matter to assist me, I would
greatly appreciate it.

In my opinion, I have a decent grasp of how to use Task Manager, but
I wouldn't be very concerned about the things you are looking at. I
use Task Manager for shutting programs down when necessary and for
adjusting priorities.

There is a freeware utility called Prio that puts another tab on the
Task Manager window. It allows you to permanently change the
priority of tasks. That is fun. Decreasing the priority of my most
important program actually increases overall system performance.
That utility also somehow validates programs (I'm not sure what that
involves).

One last thing:
Sometimes when I run a program, the program seems to take forever
to do its thing, YET, when I check the Windows Task Manager, under
processes, I see that the System Idle Process is between 80-95%
which tells me the computer is doing a whole lot of nothing. How
can the System Idle Process be so high if the computer is
dragging?

That's a good question IMO.

Another measure in Windows XP is called Performance Monitor. It's
like a dashboard. Used to be called System Monitor in Windows 98.
And in Windows 3.1, I think it was called CacheMon but maybe only
measured system cache usage. Currently I use Performance Monitor for
keeping an eye on CPU activity, free system memory, bytes sent, and
bytes received. That application is something a secondary monitor is
useful for, especially since Microsoft downgraded the window
interface so that the utility takes up a lot more room.

Good luck.

 

[John Doe]

This is fairly normal for Windows.

In Windows XP? You mean like during 100% disk usage?

For what it's worth.
If System Idle Process corresponds to CPU activity, then that is not
common in Windows XP here. Maybe in Windows 98, especially if you're
talking about system instability or failure. But usually a hang in
Windows 98 would cause 100% CPU usage. That's one reason I monitored
CPU usage in Windows 98 to help identify freezes. There might be
exceptions even in Windows XP, but as a rule AFAIK tasks don't hang
unless they are using up the CPU or there is some other resource
bottleneck.

 

[.]

I was wondering if someone could advise me about:

Totals
Handles
Threads
Processes

Threads - I've no idea. Processes would be "programs" running, right?

A _process_ is usually an exe file. A process contains virtual memory,
code, resources and data. In it there is also a _thread_ called the
primary thread.

When a process is created in Windows, a structure called a _handle_ is
produced which refers to the process. Handles are used to track processes.

Within a process there can be many threads which inherit the environment
of the parent process. Threads allow an application to run chunks of code
in parallel (threads synchronize and communicate using messages).

 

[John Doe]

Currently I use Performance Monitor for keeping an eye on CPU
activity,

Just realized that with four cores, it will probably show a graph
for all four of the cores.

"that's the way, Uh Huh Uh Huh, I like it, Uh Huh Uh Huh..."