Forensically Examine Your Pc's Processes

Take a peek at the inner workings of Windows with Task Manager.

- Nick Peers

Ever wondered what goes on under the hood of Windows? If your PC is running smoothly, doing its job, then probably not. It’s when things start to go wrong—your PC slows to a crawl, or non-responsive application errors keep popping up—that you suddenly take a keen interest. There are plenty of tools out there that promise to speed up your computer, fix errors, and make things as good as new again (whatever that means), but there’s always an element of risk involved in trusting your PC to a program that doesn’t really explain what it’s doing, failing to point out that cleaning out the Registry doesn’t—on its own, at any rate —speed things up, and, more often than not, introduces problems you later can’t unpick to resolve without a refresh or, worse still, full-blown reinstall.

We may live in a post-truth world, but your PC doesn’t care about any of that. Knowledge is power, and understanding how Windows works arms you with the insights you need to make more informed choices about what to do the next time your PC decides to slow to a crawl. In this feature, we’re going to take a close look at the programs, processes, handles, and threads that make up the bulk of what your PC does. And if all that sounds like gobbledegook, don’t worry, because we’ll also explain how everything fits together to help you understand exactly what’s going on.