Mastodawn

I got super tired of Microsoft seemingly being determined to make the app you turn to when your computer locks up and is laggy laggy itself with screen readers, so I wrote my own task manager. It's pure C ,not even linking against a CRT, meaning the current binary is around 20 KB including a complete, sortable process list. You can also customize what columns the list shows and how often you want it to refresh, if at all. I personally keep auto refresh off and just manually refresh with f5, and the list keeps your exact place whenever it refreshes. Pressing escape minimizes it to the system tray, while alt+f4 closes it. I want to do much more with this, such as binding it to a hotkey, but I think it's good enough for a first release. Source code: https://github.com/trypsynth/taskmon , 0.1.0 release: https://github.com/trypsynth/taskmon/releases/download/0.1.0/taskmon.exe , Enjoy!
Edit since this is blowing up: if you like all the hacking I do in my downtime, please consider donating on PayPal or GitHub sponsors so I can keep making teeny pieces of software that just work exactly as they should. GitHub: https://github.com/sponsors/trypsynth PayPal: https://paypal.me/tygillespie05 Thanks everyone!

GitHub - trypsynth/taskmon: Lightweight task manager replacement for Windows.

Lightweight task manager replacement for Windows. Contribute to trypsynth/taskmon development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

André Polykanine 15h ago

@TheQuinbox Killing a process on Del would be a nice addition. And… thank you, Quinn. I've been missing Process Killer for years.

@menelion Ooh delete, not a bad idea. Ctrl+E works, but I like delete. Thanks for the suggestion!

André Polykanine 15h ago

@TheQuinbox It was a program called Process Killer I've been using for many years. It had a window but you could hide it and summon by Ctrl+Shift+Accent (the backtick key, MarkDown code delimiter). And there Delete killed processes, super convenient. And Escape closed the program again.

Brandon Tyson 14h ago

@TheQuinbox @menelion Does this support what Task Manager does where if the list is set to auto refresh, you can hold the control key down while hitting the arrows and it won't refresh for the time that the control key is held down?

@BTyson @menelion Not yet, because I didn't know you could do that.

Pratik Patel 15h ago

@TheQuinbox I love that we're going back to the old days of Sys internals but with better tools.

Brandon 15h ago

@TheQuinbox Windows defender claims Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.B!ml Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.B!ml

@serrebi Notice the ML at the end? That stands for machine learning, and means they're using shitty AI to detect viruses. Go into Windows security settings and turn off cloud-delivered protection, but be sure to keep real-time protection on. That'll protect you from real threats as long as you keep your Windows up to date, and lead to way less false positives.

Brandon 15h ago

@TheQuinbox Thanks.

HarmonicaPlayer 15h ago

@TheQuinbox @serrebi i'll do just that

Brandon Tyson 14h ago

@TheQuinbox @serrebi This setting in Defender is also internally referenced as SpyNet.

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial 14h ago

@serrebi @TheQuinbox lol that Wacatac signature is so bad that I have memes for it

Luna Dragofelis ΘΔ🏳️‍⚧️🐱15h ago

@TheQuinbox I took a brief look and it looks… intimidating as someone who isn't that familiar with C development. (I'm more of a Java and Kotlin girl)

@LunaDragofelis I took a year-long high school course in Java, and it was enough to make me never want to touch it again.

0x4d6165 (Julie)10h ago

@[email protected] @TheQuinbox to be honest java has gotten much better recently but I also can't blame you

@TheQuinbox Hot diggity dog this is fast. Excellent!

TheNovemberFella ✊🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦☸️🛰️🚀13h ago

@TheQuinbox 👍

HarmonicaPlayer 12h ago

@TheQuinbox fetched the taskmon thing and its cool :) nice job

Tech Singer 12h ago

@TheQuinbox You know, I want to throw something. I really do! Why does this thing open within seconds and just work when using taskmgr is like walking through molasses? Will someone explain in detail why a team of people working at a job can't or don't want to develop something which can obviously be done during one person's spare time? What is going on exactly? I admit that everything people do, they do for a reason. It may be a horribly discreditable reason, it may be done to make them feel good at the expense of someone else, whatever. There is a reason, even if nobody is willing to state it. What good does making something a miserable failure do for anyone? Leave aside accessibility, nobody cares about screen reader users. Will someone tell me why there are youtube videos and a bunch of sites/forum posts about "going back to the old task manager"? For the lord's sake, why? Why are processors and memory increasing in speed while the software gets more annoying. There's something seriously wrong and I have no clue what it is!

Tech Singer 12h ago

@TheQuinbox Now that I have vented my temper, thanks, this works well. Not only does it work well on 10, it works on 7. I appreciate it and it has already been copied to my backup folder for stuff I put on every machine. I'm grateful.

@techsinger Glad to hear it works on 7! And yeah, it truly baffles my mind that the current task manager is as bad as it is.

Darrell Bowles 12h ago

@TheQuinbox @techsinger I know right?

Pratik Patel 10h ago

@TheQuinbox @techsinger It gets worse in every iteration. Leaving aside accessibility for the moment, the usability is awful.

@TheQuinbox It really says something when 1 person can make a utility that opens before you've even thought about hitting Enter on the executable, is responsive as fuck, takes as much disk space as a 20000 character text file and just works, while an entire engineering team seems to think that a utility that is laggy as fuck with NVDA, has a clunky UI and is about 5 times larger than the character limit of this Mastodon instance passes for innovation.

Al Puzzuoli 11h ago

@cubic @TheQuinbox I just downloaded this and my Windows Defender flagged it as a threat. Not sure why: Detected: Trojan:Win32/Ulthar.A!ml Status: Quarantined Quarantined files are in a restricted area where they can’t harm your device. They will be removed automatically. Date: 3/22/2026 6:20 PM Details: This program is dangerous and executes commands from an attacker. Affected items:
Affected items: List box
file: C:\Users\Al\Downloads\taskmon.exe

@alpuzz @cubic Ugh, Microsoft. Notice the ML at the end? That stands for machine learning, and means they're using shitty AI to detect viruses. Go into Windows security settings and turn off cloud-delivered protection (internally called spynet), but be sure to keep real-time protection on. That'll protect you from real threats as long as you keep your Windows up to date, and lead to way less false positives.

Al Puzzuoli 11h ago

@TheQuinbox @cubic LOL okay thanks.

@alpuzz @TheQuinbox Disable that smart app control bullshit as well while you're on your feet. Not related but still a stupid security misfeature.

@alpuzz @TheQuinbox Modern AV being hyperparanoid as usual.

Andre Louis 11h ago

@TheQuinbox I use classic task manager but it doesn't show GPU, so wondered if you could do that at some point? This is nice already though, going in my portable programs folder for sure.

@FreakyFwoof Hmm, if modern taskman can do it I almost certainly can.

Andre Louis 11h ago

@TheQuinbox Aah, show description as well (if applicable) sometimes an exe is not obvious.

Andre Louis 11h ago

@TheQuinbox Sorry, two last things and I'm done spamming. One applies to Paperback too.
Show an option to go to the file location, and land directly on the file. Paperback does this but it just lands in the directory, not on the file itself. Quality of life fix there.

@TheQuinbox I should backup my taskmanager exe and replace it with this

@TheQuinbox I use the classic task manager from the windows 7 days, as winaero still offers it and I got used to the ui from back when I needed to use task manager on an old school pc that ran win7 years ago.