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I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

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Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#81

Apologies for attacking Dave's credibility on an unrelated thread, but his comments on Linux are absolutely falsehoods. He said that all Linux machines have some sort of proprietary blob Linus Torvalds put in there on EVERY release, for his own purposes. Compared to Windows, which is entirely closed source.. I just blocked his channel after that. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/rb2xzk/dave_plummer_... Related…

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Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#82
post #81

Apologies for attacking Dave's credibility on an unrelated thread, but his comments on Linux are absolutely falsehoods. He said that all Linux machines have some sort of proprietary blob Linus Torvalds put in there on EVERY release, for his own purposes. Compared to Windows, which is entirely closed source.. I just blocked his channel after that. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/rb2xzk/dave_plummer_... Related…

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Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#83

Dave also has his own YT channel full of "hidden" stories about old microsoft tech he worked on. Be sure to check him out, he's got quite a few good ones :) https://www.youtube.com/c/DavesGarage/videos

He has some nice content, but I cant deal with the click bait thumbs

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#84
It's pretty cool that this one person wrote a piece of software that has been used by so many people, it's crazy to think of that impact. I personally find it difficult to get excited or interested in the technical intricacies of a closed source piece of software put out by a megacorp though, unless I'm getting paid for it I'd way rather learn about the technical details of open source counterparts and the systems they're apart of.

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#85
post #43

> There should be nothing that TaskMgr can't kill Except Defender/Malware Protection...

>Except Defender/Malware Protection... I just checked and it can definitely kill malware protection so I don't know where you got that information but it's false. And even without checking, being able to disable malware protection is a necessary feature in any OS, for SW development and debugging activities, so I would assume malware protection could be easily killed without a problem by the user with admin privilege…

I was trying this a few weeks ago on a brand new Windows 10 install

I turn off the "realtime protection" in GPO/options... it's still there

I try killing "Antimalware Service Executable" (Msmpeng.exe), in taskmanager or try disable the service in the service control panel: Access Denied

I reboot into safe mode, disable the service, reboot and it's gone

.. but reboot again and it's back

I had to DELETE the service in safe mode and change the permissions on the executable so it couldn't be accessed/modified by anything

(borderline rootkit if you ask me)

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#86
post #53
post #3

I miss taskmgr so much on Linux/macOS. Everything in taskmgr feels so logical and manageable without extra steps.

There was a great little tool that I think used to be in Ubuntu, but possibly another distro, where you could press a keyboard combo, and it would turn the cursor into a little crosshairs, and then if would kill the app running whatever window you clicked on. I don't remember what it was called, anyone know?

It was definitely xkill, I remember using it a lot during the early Ubuntu releases. I think the shortcut was ctrl-alt-esc, but its so long ago it was removed I no longer know for sure.

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#87
My favourite part of Task Manager lore are nearly undocumented keyboard shortcuts: - pause updates by holding CTRL pressed, - hit F5 for refresh (standard binding, isn't it?), or hold F5 to get refreshes way more frequent than with View > Update Speed > High.

They might have been visible in menu mnemonics in past versions (?), or might have been mentioned in the help, but now, while still working, there is no clear way to learn them from current Windows 10 Task manager graphical interface. (Even the Help menu item is gone.)

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#88
> visually complicated app to ever be fully resizable in all dimensions without any flicker

This is still ridiculously hard to do on Windows if using standard controls as a filler. Especially when resizing by the top or left edge. The only trick I know is to attach D3D context to the window, but even that has edge cases that look even more jarring than regular flickering.

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sysinternal process explorer is the ultimate taskmgr for Windows, for example you can see the threads for each process, and even their call stacks! When a file can’t be deleted because it’s open in a process but you can’t find which one, you can even search into memory for all processes and find the culprit in 3 seconds. Or see what files / reg keys a process has currently open and even force-close them… give it a tr…

>Sysinternal process explorer is the ultimate taskmgr for Windows The whole Sysinternals Process Utilities[1] is a goldmine worth bookmarking for any windows power user, and the quality of the tools is great. The only thing I don't understand is why they aren't shipped by default with every windows installation. They're so useful and no bloat, it boggles my mind why they're not there by default. [1] https://docs.micr…

Yes, a lot of great tools, 2nd on my list is process monitor. It lets you know what sys calls were performed by any process, same as ptrace I believe. Super useful to debug a 3rd party app, for instance one that doesn't even start, looking for a file or reg key at different places, failing and exiting early. It allows one to fix it even if there are no errors or logs at all.

Re: I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something (2020)

#90
post #16
post #3

I miss taskmgr so much on Linux/macOS. Everything in taskmgr feels so logical and manageable without extra steps.

That's funny. I miss xkill on windows so much.

SuperF4 has that ability on windows! IIRC it even uses a crosshair cursor
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