Windows Task Manager & Base Priority - XP

[Anonymous]

I would like to understand a few things and I am hoping that this group can
help me. When I am viewing Windows Task manager in XP Pro What do these
things tell me?

PF Usage (is this the total of what is in RAM and what is being swapped to
disk or just what is being swapped to disk? If I am exceeding what I have
for RAM is there an indicator in WTM that shows this?)
Kernel Memory?
Commit Charge?
Anything else that your willing to share?

Also will changing the Base priority do anything for performance? I have
been messing with this for sometime, and the only thing that I have really
noticed is that if you turn an application up too high it is very difficult
to shut it down when it crashes and that I seem to have more crashes if I
turn stuff up? Is there a technique to this that I am not aware of? And if
there is a performance benefit, how do you get applications to start at the
level that you want them at?

Similar but different note. What's the best way to isolate and get rid of
applications that show up in the "image name" column that aren't doing
anything for you? Does any one have quantifiable results that would
encourage me to clean this area up? I really hate just shutting stuff down
and then waiting for a crash or performance increase. Does anybody have a
proven "recipe"?

Thanks, hope this isn't too far off topic, since it really isn't hardware
related.

gcooper