See how to permanently replace Task Manager with Microsoft's free Process Explorer program.
Process Explorer is an advanced, portable, process management utility, considerably more detailed than its Task Manager counterpart. If you want to replace it permanently see the instructions below.
The following ways will start Process Explorer every time you ask Task Manager to start, using Ctrl + Shift + Esc or any other method.
Setting the menu
Step 1 : Download Process Explorer, extract it and run procexp.exe or procexp64.exe, depending on your machine.
Step 2: From the Option menu, click on “Replace Task Manager” (Replace Task Manager).
Important: If you later decide to move it to a different folder, please undo the above steps. Otherwise, you will see an error when starting Task Manager.
Using the Registry Editor
Step 1 : Start Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\
Step 2 : Create a secondary key and name it taskmgr.exe.
Select taskmgr.exe and there create a named REG_SZ value Debugger.
Double-click “Debugger” and type the full path to ProcExp.exe or ProcExp64.exe. Enclose the input in double quotes, especially if the path contains spaces.
Close the Registry Editor.
Note: If a future Feature Update reverses the above setting, you may need to repeat the above steps again.
Also, if you plan to move Process Explorer to a different folder, you should edit the registry path accordingly.
