In the settings of the Windows Task Manager is an option to force it to always display on top of other applications. One of the first things I do when setting up a new computer is to enable this option.

Too many times I’ve playing a game or using some other full screen application, and the application freezes up. I can press Ctrl+Alt+Del to open the task manager, but it often opens up behind the frozen application and I can’t Alt+Tab over to it. In these scenarios, I’m often forced to just shut the computer off.

By setting the manager to always display on top, you can guarantee that you’ll be able to use it when this happens. Then you can kill the offending application.