Today is another exciting day for Windows 8 fans, as we see the Modern Task Manager revealed on MDL. Although there was some change to the Task Manager beginning from Windows Vista, this is the biggest transformation of the Task Manager we have seen to date.
New changes include a new breadcrumb allowing the user to run new tasks. Items in these screenshots have large icons and text, although this seems to be a display option that can be toggled between other ones on the breadcrumb as well. In addition, items are sorted between categories such as System-Critical Programs, Background Programs, and actual Applications. The background programs category may be useful in the future for detecting unknown apps running in the background.
The Modern Task Manager was unlocked by creating the TaskUIEnabled key and setting it to 1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TaskUI
But don’t be too excited yet. Apparently, the unlocked task manager was buggy, with applications stuck in the task manager even when they were shut down. However, at least there is given proof that we will be seeing a big change with the Task Manager.
The feature was discovered in Windows 8 Build 7850, which was recently leaked last week. At this stage, it was most likely a work-in-process with a name such as “Modern Task Manager.”
It will be interested to see what improved functionality this task manager now holds in the Milestone 3 build.
Source: Windows 8 Center
