If you use the flash client to administer a vCenter server then you will know how bad it is at updating the task list.
Here is a handy powershell example of getting a list of running tasks.
get-task
Only need to see running tasks?
get-task -Status "Running"
Values for -Status can be: Error, Queued, Running, and Success
That is a quick look at getting the running tasks out of a vCenter server. Not as easy as doing it in the C++ client but a lot more possible then in the flash client.