Category: Windows

Want to see live-updating resource usage stats from your system’s CPU, memory, disk, network or GPU? Windows 10 has some built-in perfomance monitors that can help. You can even have Windows show these panels always on top of other open windows.

The best way is to use the Task Manager.. It has some easy-to-ise performance panels displaying real time stats of your machine. Let’s explore how to use this feature.

This is for Windows 10 operating system

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Open the Task Manager

Windows 10’s Task Manager comes with performance stats that were added back in Windows 8. This post relates to Windows 10.

First, open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and choosing Task Manager or by right-clicking the Taskbar or the Start button and selecting Task Manager. Refer to below image:

Floating Panels

Now, select the Task Manager Options and chose Always on Top if you want the tool’s panels to appear on top of other open windows. See below image:

The Performance Tab

Next, click thePerformace tab. If you don’t see it, click More Details first, at the bottom of your screen. See following image:

Now, choose the performance graph from the sidebar you want to see. You will see options for your computer’s CPUs, memory, storage devices (including SSDs, hard disks, and USB devices), network connections (wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi), and GPUs (graphics processors.)

To show just a performance graph, double-click anywhere on a graph in the right pane. You can also right-click a graph and select Graph Summary View. Refer to below image:

The Performance Graphs

You can resize this smaller window and also click-and-drag anywhere inside it to position it wherever you like on your desktop. See below image:

To enlarge or make the Task Manager window smaller, just double-click inside it,

If you want to change the graph to another one just right click in the graph, chose the View option and make your selection. See following image:

Also, you can select a different graphfrom the sidebar. Refer to below image:

That’s it. I hope you found this post helpful.

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I Would Like to Hear From You

Please feel free to leave a comment. I would love hearing from you. Do you have a computer or smart device tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Please mention the device, app and version that you are using. To help us out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.

Windows 10, stores significant amounts of cache to make the system faster and more responsive. This is very efficient if you have tons of storage and free RAM to work with or a high performance CPU. Unless you have a considerable amount of RAM you will eventually run into problems that will slow down your PC, causing it to lag and maybe even hang if you load it with a lot of tasks.

Let’s explore how to clear your Windows 10 cache to keep your PC running smoothly.

This is for the Windows 10 operating system

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Using Wise Disk Cleanup Tool

To cleanup your temporary file cache, browser cache like Chrome and Edge, Windows and Application traces and much more, I recommend using the free Wise Disk Cleanup tool over the built-in Disk Cleanup app in Windows 10. Click here to see my post on the Wisk Disk Cleanup tool. In this post, are instructions on downloading, installating and running the application.

Clear Your Domain Name Server (DNS) Cache

To clear your DNS cache, we need to open the Command Prompt with admin privileges. First, enter Command Prompt in the Cortana search box located in lower left hand corner of the Task Bar. Refer to below image:

The Command Prompt app will appear in the search results in upper left hand corner. Now, click on Run as administrator from the menu on the right. See below image:

Next, enter the following command:

ipconfig/flushDNS

and press the Enter key. See following image:

You will receive a message about the status of clearing the DNS cache. Refer to below image:

Clear Your Windows Store Cache

First, open the Run command by pressing the Windows+R command. Next, enter WSReset.exe in the Run box and click OK. Refer to below image:

A black window will appear for a few seconds. Don’t be alarmed, it is clearing the Windows Store cache. See below image:

Once it is finished, the black window will disappear and the Windows Store app will launch. Just close this application.

Clear Your Location Cache

First, enter Settings in the Cortana search box located in lower left hand corner of the Task Bar. The Settings app will appear in the search results in upper left hand corner. Click on the Settings app and select the Privacy option. See following image:

Now, in the App Permissions section, select the Location option. Refer to below image:

Next, scroll down till you see the Location History group. Here, select Clear under the Clear location history on this device heading. See below image:

When finished, a small checkmark will appear beside the Clear button.

I hope you found this post helpful. Please feel free to comment or tweet out that you like TechSavvy.Life.

I have found TechSavvy.Life blog posts extremely helpful. Check them out for posts on smart phone apps, Macs and PCs!

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I Would Like to Hear From You

Please feel free to leave a comment. I would love hearing from you. Do you have a computer or smart device tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Please mention the device, app and version that you are using. To help us out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.

In Windows 10, whenever you delete a file or folders, it gets stored in the Recycle Bin. So, if you have accidentally deleted the file and want to restore it, you can easily do so from the Recycle Bin.

But the downside is that when you delete the file, the storage space on your drive remains the same. So, you will need to delete the file from the Recycle Bin as well to free up the space.

Let’s explore how to bypass the Recycle Bin using two methods when deleting files and folders in Windows 10.

This is for the Windows 10 operating system

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Method One – Delete Immediately

First, select the file or folders in File Explorer. Next, press the Shift+Delete keys to delete immediately.

Also, you can also right-click on a file or folder and click on the Delete option from the context menu, while pressing the Shift key. Refer to below image;

Windows will ask you if you want to permanently delete the file. Just press Enter or click Yes to confirm. See below image:

The file or folders are immediately gone. They cannot be recovered except through special software or highly technical recovery methods.

Method Two – Skip Recycle Bin

You can tell Windows to stop using the Recycle Bin altogether.

First, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon (usually located on the desktop). Next, select Properties. Refer to below image:

In the Properties window, enable the option that says Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin.

Note that you will have to make changes to the settings for each drive for which you need to directly delete files. For instance, if your computer has three drives — C, D, and E and you want the new settings for all three, you need to apply the settings for all three drives by selecting them before enabling the option.

Now, click OK to save your settings. See below image:

Now whenever you delete the files from your computer, they won’t be moved to Recycle Bin. Instead, all the files and folders that you delete will be automatically removed from the computer and you cannot restore them except as mentioned above.

So, it is a good idea to have the option Display delete confirmation dialog enabled. When enabled, you will be asked to confirm your choice every time you delete files or folders. See following image:

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Please feel free to leave a comment. I would love hearing from you. Do you have a computer or smart device tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Please mention the device, app and version that you are using. To help us out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.

It can be frustrating when you have an application that won’t respond. You click the X but nothing happens., it appears to be frozen. But manually turning off your computer by hitting the power button can damage your computer. Instead of waiting for the application to respond, let’s explore how to force quit applications on a Windows 10 device in three ways.

This is for the Windows 10 operating system

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Keyboard Shortcut

Click on the frozen application to bring it into focus. Now, press Alt+F4 to close it.

If you don’t select a window or application, this shortcut may cause your computer to shut down or you may receive the Shut Down Windows command prompt.

Use the Task Manager

Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch the Task Manager. Alternatively, you can right click the Windows task bar and select Task Manager from the menu. Refer to below image:

You will see a list of currently running applications. Now click on the task you want to force quit, then select End Task. See below image:

If you don’t see your application in the list, hit the More derails button in the bottom left corner of the window. You should find your task in the Processes tab. Now, click End Task. Your frozen program should now close. See following image;

Use the Command Prompt

Click the Windows+R to open the Cortana search box. Now enter cmd and press Enter or hit the OK button. See below image:

In the Command Prompt, enter tasklist and press Enter. This will display a list of currently running programs and tasks along with associated information. Refer to below image:

Locate your frozen application. Now, enter taskkill/im {name_of_program}.exe.” Replace {name_of_program} with the name of the program you want to force quit. Remember to leave a space between taskill/im and the name of the program. Finally, press the Enter key.

For example, let’s force quit the calculator program. You would enter the following command:

taskkill/im calculator.exe

then press the Enter key. See below image:

A message will be returned indicating if you have successfully force quit the application. See following image:

If the above methods fail to work, you can reboot or shutdown your computer to kill the frozen app.

I have found TechSavvy.Life blog posts extremely helpful. Check them out for posts on smart phone apps, Macs and PCs!

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I Would Like to Hear From You

Please feel free to leave a comment. I would love hearing from you. Do you have a computer or smart device tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Please mention the device, app and version that you are using. To help us out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.