The Processes and Performance tabs within the Windows Task Manager provide a good basic overview of system performance, but often you may want more information on how your system is performing and which programs and processes are using memory and CPU time. Windows 7 comes with a new utility called the Resource Monitor. Go to the “Start” menu and in the search box, type “resmon” (without the quotes) then click OK. This will open the Resource Monitor window which allows you to complete similar operations as those available in the Task Manager (such as ending processes) but provides much more information about system performance. Just make sure that you don’t go closing processes if you are unsure about their purpose, since you may inadvertently close a process which is required for Windows to operate correctly.