1. Open Task Manager.

2. Click the Performance tab (All the tabs will work, but the Performance tab works best).

3. Double-click in the blank space to the right of Performance. This gets rid of the headings and menus and leaves a window that displays CPU use.

4. Resize this window to your liking.

You now have a window that you can keep on screen out of the way and still monitor your machine. Of course, this applies to the other tabs as well. You might want to use them to monitor the applications or processes that are running. Double-clicking the top of the window you've created will redisplay the menus. This works on Window XP, Windows 2000 and Windows NT.