How to Open Windows Task Manager

Task Manager is an often-vital tool for sorting things out in Windows. Essentially, it offers a detailed view of all the applications, processes, and services that are running. On top of that it also provides information on your system’s performance, plus telling you which applications are loaded as part of the Startup process.

One of the main uses for Task Manager is to close misbehaving applications or processes.

This is easily done on the main Process screen by right-clicking the application in question and selecting End Task from the drop-down menu. But we’ve got slightly ahead of ourselves here, as that’s assuming you know how to get into Task Manager in first place.

The good news is there are multiple ways of getting into this useful tool. Committing any one of the following to memory is strongly recommended:

The quickest way to open Task Manager is to hit these three keys at the same time: Ctrl + Shift + Esc. They can all found on the left-hand side of your keyboard. Press them and you're in. It's really that simple.

This is a slightly more convoluted way of getting into Task Manager, but it’s worth highlighting because it offers up a few more options at the same time. Pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete will bring up a screen where you can hit "Task Manager" from the list, but you can also “Lock your PC”, “Switch User”, or “Sign out.” All useful.

Launching applications from the Start Menu is its reason for being, so it’s not too surprising to learn that you can also launch the Task Manager from there. Just hit the Start Menu button and then start typing “Task Manager” and it’ll pop up, ready to be launched.

The Power User menu contains lots of useful tools, including the all-important Task Manager. To access it, simply right-click on the Start button and then select "Task Manager" from the list.

Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box, type “taskmgr”, and hit Enter. This will directly open the Task Manager.

This isn’t the quickest way of opening Task Manager, but if you’re in a command prompt anyway, it’s a good shortcut to know. Open Command Prompt (Win + R: CMD) or PowerShell (from the Power User menu highlighted above), type “taskmgr”, and press Enter. This command will launch the Task Manager.

This one is the least accessible ways of launching Task Manager, although it does highlight that it is just an application like any other, is to launch it from within Explorer. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System32. Find and double-click “taskmgr.exe” to open the Task Manager.

Having several methods for launching Windows Task Manager may seem a bit overkill, but they all have their uses and there are going to be times when some are more accessible than others. Having a combination of keyboard shortcuts, command line tools, and Start menu shenanigans gives you plenty of options.