operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s, a task manager is a system monitor

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Programm ...

used to provide information about the

processes A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

and

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

running on a

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

, as well as the general status of the computer. Some implementations can also be used to terminate processes and applications, as well as change the processes'

scheduling priority In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning ''resources'' to perform ''tasks''. The ''resources'' may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The ''tasks'' may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity i ...

. In some environments, users can access a task manager with the

Control-Alt-Delete Control-Alt-Delete (often abbreviated to Ctrl+Alt+Del, also known as the "three-finger salute" or "Security Keys") is a computer keyboard command on IBM PC compatible computers, invoked by pressing the Delete key while holding the Control and A ...

keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

. Task managers can display running services (

) as well as those that were stopped. They can display information about the services, including their process identifier and group identifier.

Common task managers

* Activity Monitor, included in macOS * Conky, for the X Window System *

htop htop is an interactive system-monitor process-viewer and process-manager. It is designed as an alternative to the Unix program top. System monitor It shows a frequently updated list of the processes running on a computer, normally ordered by ...

, for the Unix shell * KDE System Guard, included in KDE * nmon, for Linux and AIX * ps, for the Unix shell * Task Manager, included in Windows *

tasklist In computing, tasklist is a command available in Microsoft Windows and in the AROS shell. It is equivalent to the ps command in Unix and Unix-like operating systems and can also be compared with the Windows task manager ( taskmgr). Windows N ...

, for DOS * top, for the Unix shell

References

* Task managers {{compu-prog-stub