How to Get Back Windows 7 Task Manager in Windows 8

With the new professional look of Windows 8, everything is completely changed.  The changes were big including the some extra added features.  With the new features Microsoft had tried harder to make the Task Manager easy for the user.

Well, yes I do miss the old Task Manager of Windows 7 and l am sure you will agree with me that average users like me having hard time to deal with the new Windows 8 Task Manager.  Options like force kill related application when we right click to kill any task is missing.

The new Task Manager comes with two options: Compact and Advanced view, let’s dig more into these options further.

Compact View

By default whenever we launch the Windows Task Manager, it will open in default compact view , Which is very basic and display all the current running applications on your system. If you want to kill or end any current running application, you can simply select the application and click the End Task button.

Advanced View

This is the second option available for Windows Task Manager, by clicking the More Details button below the Window the full Advanced View will be presented to us, Which will display all the current running Processes, App History and Performance and many other features.

Back to our main question – How to get the Windows 7 Task Manager back in Windows 8.

How to Get Back Windows 7 Task Manager

Step 1: Download the archive file (http://winaero.com/download.php?view.43) on your computer and extract the TM folder in C:\ root (if you have installed windows in C: drive). The downloaded archive contains Registry and Task Manager which can be simply added by clicking on the files twice.

Step 2: After the extraction of the downloaded folder, you will see registry files with the name of Install_x64, Install_x86 and Uninstall_x86_or_x64. Click the registry files according to the you PC architecture and if you don’t know about your system architecture, open My Computer and on the right hand side top bottom you will see a button named “System Properties” in the menu button.

After clicking the System properties, your system properties will be displayed to you, Look for System type and see whether its x64 or x86 architecture.

Run registry file by double clicking on it according to your system architecture and instantly the Windows Task Manger of Windows 8 will be replaced and no need to reboot your system for changes to take effect. After installing the new Windows 7 Task Manager, Hit Ctl+Alt+Del Keys together to launch the Windows 7 Task Manager.

Caution: Never Delete the TM folder as it contains the important information.

How it Works

Frankly, I have really no idea how the patch works, but I think patch replaces some of the Windows 8 Task Manager files and put in the default mode where the Task Manager files which were in hidden stage were disclosed back to the user.