December 19th, 2017

How does Task Manager categorize processes as App, Background Process, or Windows Process?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

When you go to the Processes tab in Task Manager, you see the processes grouped into three categories: App, Background Process, and Windows Process. How does it decide which process goes into which category?

These are terms that Task Manager simply made up. The system itself doesn’t really care what kind of processes they are.

If the process has a visible window, then Task Manager calls it an “App”.

If the process is marked as critical, then Task Manager calls it a “Windows Process”.

Otherwise, Task Manager calls it a “Background Process”.

That’s all. Nothing fancy. And completely arbitrary.

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Old New Thing
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Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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