Inside Task Manager with the Original Author

My other channel, join now so you're there for episode 01 of my AudioBook!

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"Footage from 'WarGames' directed by John Badham, produced by MGM/UA Entertainment Co., 1983."
"Footage from 'Highlander' directed by Russell Mulcahy, produced by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, 1986."
"Footage from Evel Knievel's jump at Caesars Palace, broadcast by ABC's Wide World of Sports, 1967."

In this video, clips from 'Highlander' (Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, 1986), 'WarGames' (MGM/UA Entertainment Co., 1983), 'The Simpsons' (Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox Television, Year of episode), and footage of Evel Knievel's jump at Caesars Palace (ABC's Wide World of Sports, 1967) have been used under the Fair Use doctrine for educational purposes. These clips serve to provide real-world examples, illustrate points, and stimulate critical analysis, significantly transforming the original content in the process.

The missing 10th way to start Task Manager:

[kuyajj]

Wish there could be like a hall of fame for programmers. People like Dave are the real super stars.

[DavesGarage]

A few thoughts I didn't mention in the video that might be of interest: I'm not a UI designer. I make good UI for me, but not for "regular people". I once tried to design the Photos UI and it looked like Visual Studio 6, since I'm a "power user" but it wouldn't be a good way to do it for all Windows users, for example.

But Task Manager was one of those cases where the thing I wanted turned out to be something that a lot of other people wanted too. Most things require a good designer, but I think they'd come at the problem very differently. So this was perhaps a unique case of where having an engineer who understood the system make the UI, rather than the user experience folks dictating what you could do... if that makes sense.

It's by no means unique, but I think the defensive programming approach I took within it has proved useful in the long run, since Task Manager is pretty well respected for being robust. It takes extra time and effort to handle every error case gracefully, and to check every return value, etc... but that's why you never see it get into a bad state. If you ever get "Task Manager (Not Responding)", at least in the older versions of Windows, I'd almost guarantee the system itself is borked at that point, and not Task Manager. Small consolation when it's your machine, though, I know!

Long story short, I made it for me, and I'm super grateful that so many others have found it useful over so long a period of time!

[mateusv]

You made THE task manager? Jesus Christ, that's something

[grkuntzmd]

I worked at Bell Labs in the mid '80s as part of the Unix System V R4 C compiler team. One day when I was working on a port to the Intel i860 processor, I wrote a small assembler debugger because the symbolic debugger was not finished yet. I named my debugger "fred", just because. It soon spread throughout the department, and I would occasionally get a call or email question about it. No problem. Somehow, fred got included on the Unix source tape that ended up being shipped around the world. One day I got an email from someone in Italy asking a question about something that wasn't completely clear in the manual page I had written. I answered the question, then asked how they knew about fred. That's how I found out it had gone out with the source code.

[SkeletonBill]

A modern OS without a task manager is just unthinkable, and it's one of the few things in Windows 11 that still focuses on functionality over form. Quite a legacy you built there.

[leocatz]

Task Manager has saved me more times than I could possibly count. Great job. I'm grateful for your work!

[Lesardah]

This might sound insane, but when you said you wrote the Task Manager, I had this feeling like you're the biggest celebrity in the world (to me). Your work has DEFINITELY stood the test of time, and you've saved millions of people hundreds of hours with it. Cheers!

[skurtyyskirts]

Imagine having the creator of the Task Manager on your resume.

[alienJIZ]

I hope it says "Father of Task Manager" on your business card. My company once worked with the "Father of Uninstall" who wrote the uninstall sequence for Windows apps. Still to this day probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen on a business card

[SonoftheBread]

The CREATOR OF IT condoned my use of Ctrl+Shift+Escape. I feel so validated. I love you.

[dulstrik]

You've saved me from many system lockups and a potential ass-whooping from my parents when they walked in on me viewing naughty materials that wouldn't close properly without Task Manager. You're the hero we needed, but the one we don't deserve!

[sauce_aux]

Task manager; the most reliable asset in Windows when all of your media programs crash and lock up👌🏽you’re a gift, sir. Thank you

[mprto]

Task Manager is one of the single most important tools in the OS ever created. Well done!

[oliverscratch]

Your comment about "End Process" vs. "Kill Task" reminded me of something. Years back I worked for a company that makes automated blood testing machines for medical laboratories. One product's software would, now and then, pop up a message: "Child is killed." This caused some consternation among our customers as a report of a child dying is rather a big deal when you work in a hospital. It caused more than a few calls to product support before the software group fixed it.

[Danydvyddasdasdas]

For all the faults Windows has had over the years, the Task Manager was always a feature I was tremendously grateful for. Thank you sir!

[pressfinchat]

No day has gone by without me opening Task Manager at least once. Setting startup programs, Fixing audiodg issues, Ending stubborn programs, Monitoring system components, etc. You are my hero.

[Rayowag]

Not saying you deserve a Nobel Peace Price for Taskmanager since I'm sure it prevented a lot of anger in the world, but I'm saying that some recipients of that price did less for people's inner peace than you did with creating Taskmanager. Legend.

[Luzgar]

If every developer took that much care and pride in their work, the world would be a very different place.

[henningerhenningstone]

I still fondly remember how, even on the most broken, messed up or OOM Windows XP, Task Manager was the _one_ thing that _never_ let me down.
I always appreciate when people go the extra mile to do their job not only right but extremely well, and here the perfectionism truly shows :)

[AramilsMusic]

My friends and I used to play a game on LAN partys which consisted of taking turns ending processes in Task Manager until your system crashes.
Like a "Last Task Manager standing".

Anyway thanks for your service, Dave! I am glad you came up with that sweet little program.