Ex-Microsoft engineer says this is what Windows' Task Manager would "probably" look like today — but it's a "good thing" he stuck to his OS design lane

Microsoft veteran Dave W. Plummer (perhaps better recognized as Dave's Garage across social media) is known across the Windows ecosystem for his contributions to the Task Manager, Calculator, and even pinball, among many others.

The engineer-turned-YouTuber has shared interesting stories about his time at the tech giant, including the time he almost got fired for adding ZIP file support to Windows over 30 years ago. While Plummer left Microsoft in 2003 before the release of Windows Vista, his creative juices continue to flow.

Plummer created the Task Manager for Windows, and even made a sweeping declaration on Reddit that "there should be nothing that TaskMgr can't kill." The Task Manager has evolved over the years, but he shared a concept showing how it might look today if he were still designing it (via PCGamer).

Dave shared the concept via his X account, which featured a modern dashboard for his own Tempest AI. "This is probably what Task Manager would look like (and sound like) if I were still around," added Plummer. "Which is why it's a good thing I knew to stay in my lane, design-wise :-)"

This imagined dashboard, based on that Tempest AI project, includes several graphs, two speedometer‑style gauges, and a general cyberpunk‑inspired theme. It also features music, surprisingly, which our sister site PCGamer called its best (and worst) part due to its "pounding synthwave/rave/glitch" nature — hardly in keeping with modern Windows.

Related: I'm replacing the Task Manager on all my Windows PCs with this free app

If you didn't know, Tempest was a retro arcade game published by Atari in 1981. It used early vector graphics to simulate 3D movement, and was particularly difficult. Last year, Plummer indicated that he chose Tempest for his AI project because it's a "beast to master with fast-paced action and complex patterns."

For context, Plummer holds the world record on Tempest on its hardest settings. "Most humans are notoriously bad at the game, and it's a tough challenge for an AI to crack, which is precisely why it's perfect for this project," the engineer added.

According to Plummer, "It burns about 75% of the GPU at 30fps on my M2 Mac Pro, so it's "not insubstantial' with its GPU demands!", just in case you were wondering how much processor and memory the project takes.

Over to you

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