Identifying Troublesome Software

Although Windows is responsible for its fair share of problems, applications, drivers, and other software are often responsible. Windows provides a couple utilities for helping track down problems with other software-Task Manager and the System Configuration Utility.

NOTE:
Don't assume that the programs you run are the only programs running on your PC. Many programs that you install or that came already installed on your PC run in the background. You won't see buttons for them on the Windows taskbar or even in the system tray, but they're running just the same and can cause conflicts with Windows and your other programs. They can also consume processor and memory resources.

Using Task Manager

Task Manager is most useful for identifying programs that have locked up or are "Not Responding." To run Task Manager, do one of the following:

• Click Start, type task manager, and then click View running processes with Task Manager.
• Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and click Start Task Manager. (This comes in handy when Windows is locked up and you can't open the Start menu.)

In either case, Task Manager appears, displaying a list of applications running on your PC. If an application is shown as "Not Responding," you can exit the application, although you may lose any recent changes to what you were working on in that application. To exit the application, click its name, click End Task, and then confirm your request.

If your PC is running very slowly, you can also use Task Manager to help identify the problem. Click the Processes tab and check the CPU and Memory columns, which show the percentage of resources the process is using. (The number in the CPU column is most important.) If the number is consistently high for a program (over, say, 50), you may need to do some additional troubleshooting to find out why it's so high.