The Goverlan Task Manager is used to monitor the system performance, the running processes and the start up program of a computer.
To open the Task Manager focused on the local machine, click on the 
icon in the Goverlan Tools section. To open the Task Manager for a computer, click on its icon below the computer object. Once the Task Manager is opened, you can set the focus to another machine by selecting File > Connect To... or File > Connect to Local Machine.
The task manager is hosted by its own process, so closing Goverlan doesn't close any opened Task Manager.
The Task Manager can display its information in 3 view modes:
Normal View Mode
Minimized View Mode
The Task Manager inserts an icon in the Windows notification area. This icon is always visible.
This icon reflects the current CPU usage of the focused machine. To view more performance counters, place the mouse cursor over it and a tool tip appears which displays the CPU, Memory, Disk and Network usage counters.
Single click on this icon to trigger the Summary View Mode (see below)
Double click on this icon to trigger the Normal View Mode (see above)
Right-click on this icon to open the context sensitive menu.
Summary View Mode
The Summary View Mode only displays the primary performance counters of the focused machine. This view mode is designed for monitoring. To start the Summary View Mode, single click on the Task Manager Icon in the Windows notification area. To close the Summary View Mode, click on the Close button or single click again on the notification area icon.
Use the Options menu to control the behavior of the Goverlan Task Manager.
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Options > Always On Top |
Enable to keep the Task Manager window on top of all other windows. |
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Options > Hide When Minimized |
If enabled, minimizing the Task Manager removes its entry from the Windows Taskbar. Once hidden, you can restore the Task Manager by double-clicking on its icon in the Windows Notification area. |
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Options > Replace Windows Task Manager
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Enable this option if you want the Goverlan Task Manager to be your default task manager. Once enabled, starting the default task manager on your machine will open the Goverlan Task Manager (versus the Windows Task Manager). Note: You can start the standard Windows Task Manager from the Goverlan Task Manager by selecting View > Show Windows Task Manager from the menu. |
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View > Refresh All Data |
Requests the Task Manager to re-query all data from the client machine. Use this option if the information displayed by the task manager seems de-synchronized or if the connection with the client machine is lost. |
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View > Update Speed > ... |
Use this menu to configure the update frequency of the Task Manager. |
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View > Show Windows Task Manager |
Select this option to display the native Windows Task Manager. This is useful if you have configured the Goverlan Task Manager to be the default task manager on your machine and you wish to use the Windows Task Manager temporarily. |
To export the information displayed by the Task Manager to a text file, click on the report button located at the top right corner of the window.
On Windows Vista or later, the Goverlan Task Manager automatically detects if UAC is active and allows you to restart the process with elevated privileges. In such an environment, the File > Run Elevated menu entry is accessible. If you execute an action which requires elevated privileges, Goverlan automatically prompts you to switch to elevated mode.
This option is disabled if UAC is not detected.
The Application tab displays the application currently running. An application is a process which owns one or more visible windows.
To view detailed information about a running application, select it, right click on the mouse and select Properties. You can also double click on it.
To terminate an application, select it, right click on the mouse and select End Process. You can also click on the End Task button.
To modify the priority of the application, select it, right click on the mouse, select the Set Priority sub menu and click on the desired property.
To view the process object of the application in the Processes tab (see below), select it, right click on the mouse and select Go To Process, or click on the Switch button.
To start a new process, click on the New Task... button. The New Task button starts the Run As feature.
Tip: If you are viewing the application information on a machine which has two or more user sessions, you can group the information displayed by right-clicking on the User column header and selecting Show in Groups
This tabs displays extended information, including performance counters on all running processes on the system.
To terminate an application, select it, right click on the mouse and select End Process. You can also click on the End Task button.
To modify the priority of the application, select it, right click on the mouse, select the Set Priority sub menu and click on the desired property.
To start a new process, click on theNew Task... button. The New Task button starts the Run As feature.
The processes can either be displayed as a flat list or in a parent relationship tree format. You can switch between the two modes by Enabling / Disabling the Show process parent relationships option.
Each process, except for the root processes, have a parent process (the process which spawned them). Each process can also spawn new processes which become their child processes. The parent relationship view mode shows the processes in a parent/child tree format, highlighting how a process was created. For instance, the list of running processes as displayed above, can also be viewed in the parent to child tree as follows:
This view format is very useful to recognize processes initiated by the console user (the processes parent is always Explorer.exe) versus processes started by the system such as services. You can also collapse entire branches to emphasize certain processes.
Note 1: In the Parent to Child view mode, you cannot sort the information by clicking on a column.
Note 2: The accuracy of the parent to child process relationship is not guaranteed. The relationships are determined by querying a process's parent PID. However, the parent process may have been terminated and the termination of a parent process does not terminate its child process. The parent process's PID may then have been reassigned to a new process.
The Task Manager Process tab is capable of displaying a lot of information about each process. Most information is hidden by default in order to avoid cluttering the interface.
To display extended information for all processes, right-click on the columns header and Check / Un-check the columns to be displayed.
To display extended information for a particular process, double click on it to view its properties.
Use this tab to determine the most resource consuming processes on the target machine. The Top 5 tab displays the five most active processes for CPU usage, disk activity, memory usage and page faults:
The CPU and Disk IO sections can display either instantaneous values (i.e., the processes which are currently consuming the most resources), or the All Time Values which correspond to the processes which have consumed the most resources since the system started.
The performance tab displays real-time CPU, Memory usage and Disk Activity information. The refresh update speed can be controlled selecting View >> Update Speed from the main menu. Performance counter information is also displayed at all times in the Task Manager status bar.
Each graph keeps historical data of the counter it monitors. A time-line at the bottom of the graph displays the time frame currently being displayed. You can also right-click within the graph and enable the Scale to Fit option to view the full set of recorded information. To reset the history of the performance counters, click on the Reset Counters button.
The CPU Activity, Memory Activity and Disk Activity graphs offer time-line information. You can view the process which was most active at any point of the time-line of the focused graph.
To view the time-line information, place your mouse cursor over the desired point in the graph.
The Networking tab displays real-time network usage performance information. The information presented in this view represents the statistics for each network interface available on the computer and is divided into the Receive and Send graphs.
Use this tab to view the currently configured startup program on the computer. A startup program is a process which automatically starts when a user logs in. For instance, Microsoft Messenger is often configured to automatically start upon logging in. However, having too many programs configured to start automatically may result in a lengthy and slow login process.
The Startup Programs tab lists all currently configured startup programs. The list displays default information for each program such as the process name and description, however, more information is available. To modify the information displayed in the list, right click on a column header and enable/disable the appropriate categories.
A program can be configured to automatically start in multiple ways. The Type information column displays some generic description of where the configuration has been found. This value can be:
Registry - [All Users | User Side]
The startup information was found in the registry under one of the Windows\..\Run keys.
Windows Startup Group [All Users | User Side]
The startup information was found in the user profile under a Startup folder.
To see the exact location where the startup information was found, enable the Found In column (again, right click within a column header and select the desired column). The Found In column shows the exact registry path or folder path where the configuration settings were found.
To stop a program from automatically starting, select it from the list and click on the Remove button. Note: This operation cannot be undone and it does not terminate the currently running processes. It only removes the startup configuration settings for the program.
If you wish to terminate the process initiated under the startup configuration, select the item and click on the Go to Process button before removing the startup program item. If the process is still running, the focus is automatically set on it in the Processes tab. You can then terminate the process.
Disabling a startup program prevents it from running the next time the user logs in. However, the entry is remembered and can be re-enabled at any time.
To disable a startup program, select it from the list and click on the Disable button. A disabled startup program is indicated with a red cross.
To re-enable a startup program, select it from the list and click on the Enable button.