Discovering Evolution in Management Tools: How Windows 11 Transforms the Classic Task Manager

Windows 11 22H2 introduced a new Task Manager, complete with a more modern interface, dark mode support, and more power settings. However, if you still don’t like the new design, you can (for now) still open the classic Task Manager.

Albacore pointed out on Twitter/X that the old Task Manager is still present in the latest versions of Windows 11. You can access it by running the below command, either through the Run dialog (right-click on Windows button in taskbar, then ‘Run’) or from a Terminal window. After the Task Manager is open, you can pin it to your taskbar (right-click on the taskbar icon, then ‘Pin to taskbar’) for easy access in the future.

taskmgr -d

The old Task Manager still looks mostly the same as it did before the Windows 11 22H2 update. It’s still available because it’s still hidden in the system files for Windows, with the primary executable located at C:\Windows\System32\Taskmgr.exe. There’s also a 32-bit version stored at C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Taskmgr.exe. It’s not clear when, or if, those versions will be removed and redirected to the modern Task Manager. Internet Explorer was removed completely in Windows 11, but there’s still an iexplore.exe executable to retain compatibility with older software, which redirects requests to Microsoft Edge.

You can’t use the old and new Task Manager applications at the same time, but otherwise, it works just as it did before Windows 11 22H2. You can select a task and click the “End task” button to shut down system processes, or right-click on tasks to see more information. The general layout didn’t really change with the newer version, but the tab bar was redesigned and there are more viewing options.

The new Task Manager had some bugs when it first rolled out, but most of those issues have now been solved, so there’s not a reason for most people to go back. Still, Microsoft hasn’t completely erased the old Task Manager from existence yet, so you can check it out on a fully updated Windows 11 PC for a while longer.

Source: Albacore via WindowsLatest

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