The following is addressed to
IBM PC Clone Windows 3.x plus
Users only, but the rest of you can listen in. I don't mind. =) You might find it amusing too.
Remember what Windows used to look like before 1995 when it started looking like an Apple Computer? Before the days of the start bar, Windows had this clunky interface with windows inside of windows inside of icons inside of yet more windows. That's why they call it Windows, though I'm not sure why they call it that now. Really it was maddening. Well the program that facilitated all this, which was a progam enacted by your computer upon startup with or without your permission, was called PROGMAN.EXE.
Actually there was (and perhaps is still today) a way to have something else run in Program Manager's place. Computer users who know just enough to be dangerous could replace PROGMAN with CLOCK.EXE or something equally insidious which would cause no end of problems for someone else's computer. This would only work on computers still running on Windows 3.11 or around then. Doubt it'd make much difference to a Windows 95 plus computer, but I digress.
Program Manager hasn't been used hardly at all for years. Nowadays it's not very useful at all. I doubt they did much to it in the upgrades. It may even still be a 16-bit program when everything else in your Windows enironment is theoretically 32-bit. However, it's STILL in your computer. Don't believe me? Even if you have Windows 98 or later, I bet it's still in there. This is for purposes of backward compatibility. It's doing nothing but gathering cobwebs and dust now. Don't believe me? Go to START, FIND, FILES AND FOLDERS and look up PROGMAN.EXE in your C:\WINDOWS directory. I refuse to be held responsible for what happens to your computer if you do this, but try double clicking on it. Just for grins. It shouldn't do anything TOO disasterous to your computer, but I could be wrong. Nowadays Windows uses a variant of the old File Manager: EXPLORER.EXE to facilitate the new design and interface.
Pretty snazzy, eh? You might consider deleting PROGMAN.EXE from your computer but I REALLY ADVISE AGAINST IT. You never know when it might be needed, like for some comparatively older 16 bit programs that were designed to expect it to be there. There aren't any made nowadays but you never know when that backward compatibility nonsense might come in handy for you.