The OG Creator of Task Manager on Windows Built a New Task Manager

29 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by CarbonNanotubes

45 Comments

jordand

8 hours ago

For working with processes and software development on Windows, this replacement looks useless. I use Sysinternals Process Explorer daily at work, and that'll continue being immensely useful.

taiiat

10 minutes ago

You might find some interest in System Informer, a sort of spiritual successor to Process Explorer!

iKlsR

5 hours ago

Checkout https://taskslinger.net/ instead, replaced my default with this for a few months now

jordand

5 hours ago

Then you've been ripped off as Sysinternals Process Explorer is essentially the same thing but free

iKlsR

3 hours ago

Ripped off with using a free tool to do basic task management and get better viz than default TM? To each their own, I've used SPE and I much prefer TS for my simple needs.

timeoperator

8 hours ago

It’s so ugly that it looks like one of those fake antivirus interfaces.

xattt

8 hours ago

It doesn’t even have a photo of Peter Norton with folder arms.

walrus01

8 hours ago

Best we can do is neon vector art of John McAfee holding a crack pipe

kyleee

4 hours ago

RIP in peace John. Is there a burial site in Belize or somewhere else the public can visit?

john_strinlai

8 hours ago

funny you should say that, given the history of the creator (dave plummer)

lxe

8 hours ago

[dead]

john_strinlai

8 hours ago

"Every core, honestly", "Not just used. Accounted for.", "More signal. Less hunting.", "Your machine. Your phosphor."

anyways, after scrolling through all of that stuff, it is not clear to me what the benefit of using this over normal task manager (or sysinternals tools) is, other than themes i guess?

perhaps it is better than whatever the native task management program is on mac?

"lots of words. not much substance".

mikestew

8 hours ago

perhaps it is better than whatever the native task management program is on Mac?

Activity Monitor works well enough for me. But, damn, I'd rather visually parse top all day before I'd resign myself to gaze upon that hideous mess.

walrus01

8 hours ago

Macports also provides htop , for the CLI folks.

user

8 hours ago

[deleted]

walrus01

8 hours ago

Metaphorically, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

EricFrost

8 hours ago

This seems like a good place for me to share TaskPilot, which shows you and lets you manage everything running in the background on Linux. Services, SystemD timers, cron, autostart, ports in use, snaps, containers, mounts, and more

https://github.com/eric-frost/taskpilot

walrus01

8 hours ago

Would love to see this as a signed Debian package in stable, testing and unstable. Looks very useful.

dundarious

8 hours ago

I don't use Windows at the moment, but have heard good things about this alternative, which is "Handmade" affiliated: https://taskslinger.net/

pivo

8 hours ago

Looks like it supports macOS and Linux as well.

user

9 hours ago

[deleted]

yipinwong

8 hours ago

I don't see a single compelling reason to use this over built-in one.

DetroitThrow

9 hours ago

Wow, thought the guy would be a MSFT OG but this looks like it sucks? Vibed, closed source, paid extensions.. Why on earth would anyone use this?

ndiddy

8 hours ago

He kind of fell off. He left Microsoft to found a scam company called "SoftwareOnline.com" that used ads to trick people into downloading fake anti-virus software. The software didn't do anything besides show the user nag messages about fictional security threats that could only be addressed by buying the full version, and could not be fully uninstalled. See https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-s...

walrus01

8 hours ago

Meanwhile, the creators and maintainers of linux 'btop' haven't scammed anyone or been sued by any state AGs. Shocking, I know! It's almost as if you can write a system status monitor application without doing anything shady.

tavavex

7 hours ago

Being the Task Manager Guy became his whole brand. Any time he's brought up, the Task Manager topic is sure to follow. No wonder he's doing more Task Managers. It's so pervasive it's kind of funny.

mikestew

8 hours ago

Why on earth would anyone use this?

Because they use a screen reader and don't know any better.

And remember, the state of Washington sued the author for some very good reasons. I wouldn't let his stuff anywhere near my machines.

bobsmooth

9 hours ago

Too colorful for you?

DetroitThrow

8 hours ago

I don't mind color, the glow effects just hurt the ability to read what's there (this reminds me of the gaming setups teenagers are drawn to)...but there's no reason a utility like a task manager should be closed source or have a pro version.

SG-

8 hours ago

from the Dave Plummer wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Plummer

"Plummer left Microsoft in 2003[10] to start his own company, SoftwareOnline LLC, a software vendor. Plummer claimed that the company went on to sell millions of copies of first and third party utilities software for Windows.[16]

In 2006, SoftwareOnline was sued by The Washington State Attorney General's Office for alleged violations of the Consumer Protection Act after complaints were made about two products called "Registry Cleaner" and "InternetShield". SoftwareOnline agreed to pay $150,000 in civil penalties, plus $250,000 that was ultimately suspended following compliance with all terms in the settlement, as well as $40,000 in legal fees.[6] He also founded Xeriton Corporation during this period, whose major product was the Blue Phone technical support service.[17] In December 2009, Xeriton was sold to Support.com for $8.5 million.[18]"

deepthaw

8 hours ago

an appimage to get a too complicated version of top?

esseph

8 hours ago

Yeah, and top is a crunch.

Real men visually parse /proc/ output in realtime.

MistaIA

7 hours ago

Not being anti-supportive, I wanted to try it, but... My laptop just crashed after launching it.

KronisLV

8 hours ago

It would be okay if it were a bit less AI slop in regards to prose, had more conventional fonts and also removed the obnoxious glow effects. Then again, personal opinion.

yannoninator

8 hours ago

Saved you a click, it is AI slop garbage.

Why do we need to tolerate this vibe coded slop?

We need a marker on posts which are complete AI generated rubbish.

What happened to the profession of software engineering? The craft and quality has been thrown out of the window in pursuit of slop.

We are disrespecting our own profession by turning the software we build into fast food junk where nobody wants anything we make and nobody cares about the quality and craft of creating software.

We are just building the same things repeatedly over and over again with nothing inventive or new, wasting engineering and the users time in the process.

AI has just shown how unimaginative some engineers are in choosing what problems in software to build and solve.

We need to do way better.

walrus01

8 hours ago

Feature suggestion to dang for a [slop] clickable next to [flag].