Processes and services in Task Manager?

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QI’m a PC novice but like to explore. You regularly refer to Task Manager, but what’s the difference between the stuff listed in the Processes, Details and Services tabs? When I launch Chrome, for example, it appears under Processes, but there are also entries under Details. Marc Breton

ALet’s start by taking a step back to look at desktop applications. By that we mean the kinds of programs you use every day: your Chrome web browser; an email program such as Mail; and office tools like Libreoffice Writer. Each of these is launched via an executable (EXE) file, which have .exe file extensions.

A process represents one ‘instance’ of an EXE file. Launch two instances of Chrome or Writer, say, and the same number of entries will appear in the Processes column. Processes you’ve launched appear under the Apps heading. Sibling processes are grouped in subheadings, so under Google Chrome you might see two or more Google Chrome entries. A process always has a degree of desktop interaction (an interface of some kind).

Below Apps in the Processes tab you’ll see ‘Background processes’ and ‘Windows processes’ headings. Former entries relate in some way to apps you’ve launched, such as notification area icons. The latter are elements of the Windows desktop itself. If you right-click a single Processes entry and then click ‘Go to details’, the Details tab will show the EXE file associated with that process.

Services do not have desktop interactions, so you’ll never ‘see’ them directly. They might support a ‘visible’ desktop process, but many do not. The Print Spooler service, for example, runs invisibly, just in case you want to print.

If you right-click an entry in the Details tab and choose ‘Go to service(s)’ (see screenshot 1 ), Task Manager will switch to the Services tab and highlight an associated service or services, if any. You can also right-click a service and choose ‘Go to details’ (see screenshot 2 ) to see if it has an associated process.