Windows 7: W7 Task Mgr-"Show processes from all users"

Guus · 30 May 2012

We are working on a new Windows 7 image in our company. The first tests are done but there are still some questions left, one of them is from our support guys.

Is it possible to make the button "Show processes from all users" available to all users? If you click on the button now (normal users) there is nothing happing.
If you log in with a admin account this is working.

A work around is to run this from C:\Windows\System32\taskmgr.exe as admin and you can see all processes.

But the questions is, is it possible to make this button available for all users with GPO settings?

DavidW7ncus · 30 May 2012

Hello Guus,

There are many Seven Forums Tutorials
Tutorials - Windows 7 Forums

Take a look at these two and see if they help with this issue.
Elevated Program Shortcut - Create for Standard User
Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt - Create

Hope this helps, David

Guus · 30 May 2012

Thank you David for this info, but it's not really what I'm looking for.
I know you can create an elevated shortcut for the task manager. So for a admin user this option is available.

What I'm looking for is to enable this button for every user on the computer without any admin rights.

If the user clicks this button now, the window refreshes but no extra info is added to the screen.
I think it has something to do with GPO's/UAC but I don’t know which one to edit for this problem.

logicearth · 30 May 2012

No you cannot. That would be a breech of security. To see processes of other users as well as system process you need administrative power. There is no way around that.

Guus · 30 May 2012

Quote: Originally Posted by logicearth

No you cannot. That would be a breech of security. To see processes of other users as well as system process you need administrative power. There is no way around that.

Ok that's a clear answer

Thank you.

DavidW7ncus · 30 May 2012

I'm a home user and normally logon with a STANDARD account.
If I click on "Show processes from all Users" i get prompted for an ADMIN password.

I would have thought setting up Task Manager to Run with Admin privileges (as in tutorial) would show all processes.

What I do and prefer is to use Sysinternals Process Explorer rather than Task Manager.
It has more info and shows All Users processes while running with a Standard Account.

I understand this is a different approach, requires a learning curve, ... but just throwing it out in case you're interested.

Guus · 30 May 2012

Thank you for this explanation. The strange thing is, I expected also a login popup when I click on this button as normal user. But unfortunately nothing happens...

To run the Task Manager Admin privileges is a nice idea as second option. But a nicer option would be, push the button and log in with a admin account.

logicearth · 30 May 2012

I'll tell you what you do not want to do. Allow standard users access to Task Manager that is elevated with Administrative power. You will give them so much power...one security hole after the other. Through Task Manager they could root the system, take control remove any blocks, change anything they please...this is not good for security policies.

Thus a standard user should never have the ability to access Task Manager with Administrative power.

Windows 7: W7 Task Mgr-"Show processes from all users"

W7 Task Mgr-"Show processes from all users" problems?