What is the meaning of the Task Manager memory column?

In Task Manager, you can monitor which processes are running on your computer by adding columns to the information that is displayed on the Processes tab. These columns will display information about each process, such as the amount of CPU and memory resources that the process is currently using.

Open Task Manager by right-clicking the taskbar, and then clicking Start Task Manager.

Click the Processes tab. Task Manager displays the process that is currently running under the user account.  To display the processes that all users are running, click Show processes for all users. If you are prompted to enter an administrator password or confirm, type the password or provide confirmation.

To add more columns, click View, and then click Select Columns. Select the check boxes for the columns you want to view, and then click OK.

column	Description
PID (process identifier)	The number that uniquely identifies the process that is running.
User name	The user account on which the process runs.
Session identification	The number that identifies the owner of the process. When multiple users log on, each user has a unique session identity.
Use of CPU	The percentage of time that the process has used CPU since the last update (listed as "CPU" in the column header).
CPU time	The total processing time, in seconds, that the process has been using since it was started.
Memory-Working Set	The amount of memory in a private working set is the sum of the amount of memory that the process is using and can be shared by other processes.
Memory-Peak Working set	The maximum number of working set memory used by the process.
Memory-Working Set increments	The amount of change in the working set memory used by the process.
Memory-Private Working set	A subset of the working set that specifically describes the amount of memory that a process is using and cannot be shared with other processes.
Memory-Commit Size	The number of virtual memory reserved for use by a process.
Memory-page Buffer pool	The number of paging kernel memory allocated by the kernel or driver on behalf of the process. Paging memory is memory that can be written to other storage media, such as a hard disk.
Memory-Non page buffer pool	The number of kernel memory pages that can be allocated by the kernel or driver on behalf of the process. Non-paging memory is memory that cannot be written to other storage media.
Page error	The number of page errors generated by the process since a process started. A page error occurs when a process accesses a page of memory that is not currently in the working set. Some page faults require that page content be retrieved from disk, and other page faults can be resolved without accessing the disk.
Page Error Increment	Changes in the number of page errors since the last update.
Base Priority	Precedence ranking, which determines the thread order of the scheduled processes.
Handle	The number of object handles in the process's object table.
Number of threads	The number of threads running in the process.
USER Object	The number of user objects currently used by the process. The USER object is an object from the window manager that contains Windows, menus, cursors, icons, hooks, accelerators, monitors, keyboard layouts, and other internal objects.
GDI objects	The number of objects in the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) Library of the graphics output device application programming interface (API).
I/O Read	The number of read input/output operations generated by processes (including file, network, and device I/O). Unable to compute the number of I/O reads directed to the console (console input object) handle.
I/O Write	The number of write input/output operations generated by processes (including file, network, and device I/O). Unable to calculate the number of I/O writes directed to the console (console input object) handle.
I/O Other	The number of input/output operations generated by processes that are neither read nor written, including file, network, and device I/O. Examples of such operations are control functions. Unable to calculate the number of I/O other operations directed to the console (console input object) handle.
Number of I/O Read bytes	The number of bytes read by the input/output operation generated by the process (including file, network, and device I/O). Unable to calculate I/O Read bytes directed to the console (console input object) handle.
I/o Write bytes	The number of bytes written by the input/output operation generated by the process (including file, network, and device I/O). Cannot evaluate I/O Write bytes directed to the console (console input object) handle.
I/o number of other bytes	The number of bytes transmitted by an input/output operation generated by a process that is neither read nor written, including file, network, and device I/O. Examples of such operations are control functions. Unable to calculate I/O Other bytes directed to the console (console input object) handle.
Image path name	The process location on the hard disk.
Command line	Specifies the complete command line to create the process.
User Account Control (UAC) virtualization	Determines whether to enable, disable, or disallow the use of User Account Control (UAC) virtualization for this process. UAC virtualization redirects file and registry write errors to each user location.
Describe	Description of the process.
Data Execution Protection	Whether Data execution protection is enabled or disabled for this process. For more information, see what Data Execution protection is.