Todd’s talked about this before – you go into task manager and see a bunch of programs you closed still running. Then again you see programs you never opened running. Some of them need to be there, but others could be nixed. The worst part – it could be slowing down your Web (or computer experience).
I was working on the web – going from page to page doing research today. All of a sudden Firefox just didn’t want to load a webpage. The “Loading” graphic would stay there and the page would stay blank. Of course when the pages don’t load, the first thing I check is the cable modem. But then my twitters (which happen through a program called “Twhirl”) and my email both came in. So I have internet access.
The next step is to check Task Manager. Apple has the iPod updater in there – And I don’t even own an iPod. Google Updater is in there twice. Why? Could it be to update the Google search that is on the upper right hand corner of Firefox?
There is a nmsaccessu.exe file in there. Sounds weird, so I ended the process. Found out later that was a process used for burning DVD’s and I did burn an Ubuntu ISO to disk.
Bottom line is there were a lot of processes that were cluttering up the system, but what was worse is they were stopping me from working. Once I cleared out the unused processes, everything was back up.
When I walk away from my computer, I always put it in “Hibernate” mode. I used to straight up turn the computer off, but this way, I can keep programs open. I find more issues by doing this than if I did just turn off the computer.
Nonetheless, I do know how to fix it, so it’s not a big issue for me – Just a mild annoyance. Still, these processes need to expire off the Task Manager. I don’t want to stop what I’m doing just to kill process.
I’ll most likely continue to kill processes to get back production. It’s sad that’s what I have to do – shouldn’t have to go into Task Manager unless a program freezes. Who would be to blame? Windows, Firefox or the process that is stuck in the Task Manager? Better yet – who would accept blame for it?