GeekBuddy says

Learn More than the Three-finger Salute Tells You

Before many of today's PC users were born, pressing stopped computers in their tracks. Today, the "three-finger salute" brings up the dreaded Task Manager, displaying a bewildering array of processes and asking the user whether to stop them.

Now, I can figure out what a process called "OUTLOOK.EXE" is doing, but unless I put it in my search engine, how do I know if I want to stop a process called "iviRegMgr.exe"? And I have four called "svchost.exe"--is one of them bollixing up my pc? How do I know what they're doing?

Thanks to Microsoft, SysInternals is a much better alternative.

The Sysinternals web site was created in 1996 by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell to host their advanced system utilities and technical information. Microsoft acquired Sysinternals in July, 2006 and makes it available for free. Try Sysinternals utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications.

Learn more at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx