A new and welcome feature, however, is the ability to open the file system location of a selected application. As you know, an application is a foreground program that consists of one or more processes.Īs can be expected, we can easily end tasks from this screen. The Windows Server 2012 Task Manager defaults to a deceptively basic interface (see Figure 3) that simply displays running applications. We will adopt a (what else?) task-based approach in dealing with new features. See the screenshot in Figure 2 and decide for yourself:Įnough with the history lesson: let’s fire up the new Task Manager and test its capabilities. In point of fact, the Windows Server 2012 chrome reminds of (if you can believe it) the Windows 1.0 UI from 1985.

On a tangential note, am I the only person who does not care for the Windows chrome in Windows Server 2012? The color scheme and control surface strike me as an adolescent’s concept of an enterprise server operating system UI. In any case, I would suggest that you use Tm.exe when starting Task Manager from a command-line environment so you can take advantage of the new features.

On the other hand, this is a beta build and perhaps Taskmgr.exe will be removed by the time the gold master ships. My best guess is that Microsoft retained the legacy Task Manager in Windows Server 8 Beta in order to please us older Windows systems administrators who have become settled into our ways.

Tm.exe: Windows Server 2012 Task Manager.

What’s going on here? As it turns out, the Windows Server 8 Beta build includes both the new and the old Task Managers:

Windows task manager