Editorial: Why a Task Manager?

Why indeed?

The venerable task manager is something that we all take for granted and have done since the days of NT3 on Windows. Be it the latest retina burning incarnation under Windows 8.1 or the humble and much familiar design of previous versions. The task manager is always there to let you kill off that misbehaving process in your hour of need.

Task managers also do other things, often bringing together features from Task Managers, Task Launchers and Task Switchers in differing combinations in order to service the user with a much needed feature.

Microsoft never graced Windows CE with a task manager despite its Windows lineage. Over the years many have tried to emulate the classic NT task manager for the CE platform, while others have tried to build task management features into wider concepts or tool sets.

Rich Hawley gives an overview of your Task Management options for Windows CE in this latest Editorial.

As ever, let us know what you think and what you use here on the forums.

View: Why a Task Manager

Great article, I didn't know about some of the programs listed. I especially want to give TaskSwitch+ and Windows CE Task Manager a try! Thanks, Rich!

Keep an eye on the SCL for even more options!

I know! I'm resurrecting my MobilePro 790 with a new battery! Found the SCL links for some of the software I liked!

I forgot how much I missed traditional alt-tab on Windows CE in any event.

I'm going to try WR-Tools CPULoad and ResInfo, they look awesome!

ResInfo is a must-have. What other app monitors your power and memory usage and storage space while also letting you stop running programs or processes or even soft reset the device without using hardware?

I know! It's a pain to turn the device upside-down and find the reset hole on my MP790 lol

I agree, it is a pain...hence what I did was use the push function of the scroll wheel to be my soft reset instead. Just solder a couple of jumper wires to the soft reset solder joints on the motherboard and run them to the push wires of the scroll button.

Now to soft reset, I just push down on the scroll button. But I can still use it to scroll up and down as well...however, don't make the mistake and push down on it while you are scrolling or oops....

On my 900C I actually mounted a momentary switch to perform my soft resets. There was plenty of room to mount it towards the top left of the keyboard. Then I drilled a small hole for the stylus. It works great.

I bought a bunch of really tiny switches on eBay about 10 years back. There were like 15 of each type. I've used most of them up over the years, and destroyed a few by accident as well.











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reset 780 790.jpg (99KB - 0 downloads)
switch1.jpg (87KB - 0 downloads)
switch2.jpg (134KB - 0 downloads)
switch3.jpg (131KB - 0 downloads)

Hahaha, I'd rather just turn my MobilePro upside-down . How long did that take to do?

I do like that Scroll Wheel on my MobilePro. It's nice to be on a MobilePro now as opposed to my HP 360LX or my Compaq 2010c..

CE Geek, I do want to get into ResInfo. Trying to make another archive for programs I want on my MP790. Thanks for the suggestion!

Edited by torch 2014-04-30 9:46 PM

I can totally dismantle a 790 in 4 minutes flat...and reassemble it in 6. Actually took me about 25 minutes to do the entire job the first time...

That's a very nice hack.

That's a really cool hack Rich, would be great if you could write it up for the support section?

Check out the video HERE!

Complete instructions and pictures sent to C:Amie for support section...

haven't read the whole thread, but task manager is for maintaining good balance between tasks and cpu usage.... I think.... And graphing cpu graph.