End task in task manager doesn't end anything!

S

sram

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 30, 2007
Messages
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Using Vista64-bit Ultimate.

Well, you know when you eventually resort to "end task" button in task manager to kill a not-responding application. This isn't that effective in my vista machine, and I have to end the process instead. And when ending a process, you don't know which window it refers to.

I wonder if this is related to vista?

While at this, can somebody be nice enough to explain vista's task manager to me?



what is the kernel memory? And if my total is 4 GB, how does it all add up? you see 2.6 GB cashed and 3 MB free??? and what is this 1.9 GB in the bar graph?

And what are these under System? I only know page file, but what 2306/8340 ? 2GB being used out of 8GB I set for page file?

Sorry if I sounded too stupid.

Thanks.
 
I believe that End Task is just like trying to close the program normally; the OS asks the program to finish what it's doing and quit. If the program is not responding, then you should be given the opportunity to kill it, but that might take a while or not happen at all. End Process skips straight to killing the process forcibly, hence the warning message when you use it, as programs are not given time to save. If the process has irredeemably crashed then I usually just End Process to avoid having to wait.

Kernel memory is the memory used by Windows' core components (the Executive) and other low-level things such as drivers.

You have 4GB of RAM on your system, and also an approx. 4GB page file, it would seem. This means you have 4+4 = 8GB of virtual memory. 2306MB of that 8340MB is being used in total - although it says "Page File", it really means "Virtual Memory". I'm not sure why it has such a misleading name.

The 1.9GB in the bar graph is your physical memory (RAM) usage, so of that 2.25GB virtual memory, 1.9GB of it is actually in RAM - the other 350MB of so is in the page file. So, what's in the rest of the RAM? 2.6GB of cache - Vista's SuperFetch uses all the RAM that's not in use by programs to cache data that you might need soon, which means you only have 3MB free. That's fine though, as SuperFetch will drop the RAM it's using for cache if programs need it.

The numbers don't quite add up though as these do refer to more specific things underneath, but that's the main idea.
 
sram said:
Using Vista64-bit Ultimate.

Well, you know when you eventually resort to "end task" button in task manager to kill a not-responding application. This isn't that effective in my vista machine, and I have to end the process instead. And when ending a process, you don't know which window it refers to.

I wonder if this is related to vista?
Click to expand...

if you think that is annoying, wait untill you try and kill something that was full screen via ctrl alt del and starting the taskmanager.. only to discover that task manager auto minimises to the system tray and there is no way to bring it back up.. and you cant restart becuase windows cant force the application to quit. .. its good stuff.
 
Vista, like all the other Windows OSes so far, has a 20 second default "timeout" on the end task call when you execute it. After 20 seconds you then should get the popup saying the task isn't responding and asks you if you want to close it. Click OK and then it's gone. For those impatient ones, choosing end process instead of end task can sometimes work a bit faster.

As for the memory, well, understanding how Windows - especially Vista - handles it's memory subsystems is like a black art nowadays. I'm not going to go into a ton of detail as it would be a megapost and I'm not into that right now; suffice to say it looks fine to me, except for maybe the 1.9GB in use. You must have a ton of stuff happening in that shot because that's quite a bit.

You've got 4GB of RAM, something (meaning your applications/etc) is using up about 1.9GB of it (it's not precise, it never is), and Vista is caching all the rest for SuperPrefetch - hence it shows you've got 3MB free. Obviously 1.9 + 2.3 != 4 (4GB of RAM) so there are other things at work here and that's where it gets really complicated.

It looks ok to me, but I'd be curious to know precisely what applications you had running when that picture was snapped because 1.9GB seems pretty high, give or take a few hundred megs.
 
Almost 2GB ram use is very normal I know when I had 4GB of memory with vista it would use that much if I did not have really anything going on, so it would load up the memory for Superfetch, I tested this running games (in window mode) and I could see windows dumping the Superfetch in order to give the ram needed for the game. It was quite neat to watch and would do it every time. once the game was ended, soon after I could see windows build up Superfetch again.

As it stands now I have a 8 GB system. and Vista is using 30% (just over 2GB) of my memory. I do have some stuff running but i am sure a good 15% of that is just Superfetch. but that's ok, I know windows will handle it and dam if I still have 6GB avail still plenty to be posting this message :D
 
%~> tskill [PID]

Sometimes, if Ending the Program won't work, this will.
 
Obviously 1.9 + 2.3 != 4 (4GB of RAM) so there are other things at work here and that's where it gets really complicated
Click to expand...

This is what was confusing me!
 
not sure if it works in Vista, but in XP if you need to know what task controls what program, simple bring up command prompt (start, run, cmd (in Vista, winkey-R, cmd)) and in the command prompt type

tasklist /svc
 
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