{"id":8423,"date":"2012-01-30T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2012\/01\/30\/why-does-it-take-task-manager-longer-to-appear-when-you-start-it-from-the-ctrlaltdel-dialog\/"},"modified":"2012-01-30T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T07:00:00","slug":"why-does-it-take-task-manager-longer-to-appear-when-you-start-it-from-the-ctrlaltdel-dialog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20120130-00\/?p=8423","title":{"rendered":"Why does it take Task Manager longer to appear when you start it from the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amit<\/a> was curious why it takes longer for Task Manager to appear when you start it from the Ctrl<\/kbd>+Alt<\/kbd>+Del<\/kbd> dialog<\/a> compared to launching it from the taskbar.\n Well, you can see the reason right there on the screen: You’re launching it the long way around.\n If you launch Task Manager from the taskbar, Explorer just launches taskmgr.exe<\/code> via the usual Create­Process<\/code> mechanism, and Task Manager launches under the same credentials on the same desktop.\n On the other hand, when you use the secure attention sequence, the winlogon<\/code> program receives the notification, switches to the secure desktop, and displays the Ctrl<\/kbd>+Alt<\/kbd>+Del<\/kbd> dialog. When you select Task Manager<\/i> from that dialog, it then has to launch taskmgr.exe<\/code>, but it can’t use the normal Create­Process<\/code> because it’s on the wrong desktop and it’s running under the wrong security context. (Because winlogon<\/code> runs as SYSTEM, as Task Manager will tell you.)\n Clearly, in order to get Task Manager running on your desktop with your credentials, winlogon<\/code> needs to change its security context, change desktops, and then launch taskmgr.exe<\/code>. The desktop switch is probably the slowest part, since it involves the video driver, and video drivers are not known for their blazingly fast mode changes.<\/p>\n

It’s like asking why an international package takes longer to deliver than a domestic one. Because it’s starting from further away, and it also has to go through customs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amit was curious why it takes longer for Task Manager to appear when you start it from the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog compared to launching it from the taskbar. Well, you can see the reason right there on the screen: You’re launching it the long way around. If you launch Task Manager from the taskbar, Explorer just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-8423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-other"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Amit was curious why it takes longer for Task Manager to appear when you start it from the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog compared to launching it from the taskbar. Well, you can see the reason right there on the screen: You’re launching it the long way around. If you launch Task Manager from the taskbar, Explorer just […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}