Kill, Terminate or Stop a Windows Unresponsive, Hanged or Frozen Application or Process
There are a lot of buggy and error prone programs and applications for Windows operating system that may cause your system, desktop or application itself to behave strangely. Beside, the program may be not responding too. Sometimes in worse case, an application may have memory leak where used memory are not released to other purpose, and uses up all available CPU or system resource, causing system to unresponsive or freeze, and simply hang up on you. In this situation, it’s possible to stop or end the not responding application or process by using Windows Task Manager.
To kill, terminate, stop or end an unresponsive or hanged application:
- Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys simultaneously, and then click on Task Manager. Alternatively, right click on taskbar and select Task Manager. You can also start Task Manager by manually starting “taskmgr” from Run command in Start Menu.
- In the Windows Task Manager window, locate and select (highlight) the application or program that’s not responding. In your system is crawling and extremely slow in responding, you may also check out for services or processes that using too much CPU resources or memory resources.
- Click on End Task.
- A Task Manager Warning dialog saying “Terminating a process can cause undesired results including loss of data and system instability. The process will not be given the chance to save its state or data before it is terminated. Are you sure you want to terminate the process?” will appear. Confirm the process by clicking on OK or End Now.
Related Articles
- Exit and Quit from Frozen or Hanged iPhone Application Program
- How to Terminate or Stop and Restart Explorer.exe Shell in Windows XP and Vista Cleanly and Gracefully Without Reboot PC
- Terminate Process and Delete the Source Program with Ultimate Process Killer
- How to Kill Stubborn Processes That Fail to End Process in Task Manager
- Force Close Stopped Responding Programs & Frozen Processes
- How to Get and View Process Identifier (Process ID or PID) on Windows
- How to Kill Windows Explorer Processes Easily in Windows Vista
- Firefox Unresponsive Script: Increase JavaScript Execution Waiting Time
- Download AntiFreeze to Recover from System Hang by Terminating Unresponsive Programs
- USB Safely Remove 4.0 Free License Code for One-Click Stop, Remount, Real Device Name and Fix Cannot Stop Error
Entries (RSS)
May 20th, 2009 00:52
I concur Optimusx this is for beginners and as you and Jody have highlighted it doesn’t resolve the crux of the matter. Windows can make available an option to terminate “instantly” services/programs that become problematic however that would be too simple. Unfortunately what we end up with is an opportunity for hackers to offer real solutions that might resolve the issue but who’ll risk that ?
Windows 7 may be an attempt by the Microsoft monopoly to provide a cure for a price i say “Suken Mein Coken” ya “Swvine Hund”.
December 29th, 2008 16:44
[...] choose to terminate, stop or kill the problematic application using the Windows Task Manager. Terminating the application, however, might cause undesired results such as loss of data or an unstable system. Forced [...]
December 10th, 2008 22:17
Eso no funciona sino en casos normales y a pesar de que TODAVIA existen usuarios que no saben que es el administrador de tareas o para que sirve, este “truco” es sumamente basico e inutil para un elevado porcentaje de programas que permanecen bloqueados en memoria aun despues de intentare terminarlos. Es un periodo de gracia como dicen por ahi arriba o algo asi, pero COMO se puede terminar sin necesidad de esa larga espera que a veces puede llegar hasta a los 10 minutos ?? si va a publicar una respuesta trate de que no sea para niños de kindargarten en Windows
December 5th, 2008 19:43
Si el administrador de tareas no funciona, puedes matar por la fuerza al programa utilizando
tskill nombre_proceso.exe
ó
taskkilll /IM nombre_proceso.exe
ya sea desde la línea de comandos o mediante un archivo .bat
October 26th, 2008 19:04
Process Tamer http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/proctamer/index.html allows you to stop most services that Task Mgr does not. Other great benefits too.
August 21st, 2008 03:01
Everyone knows this crap does not work. There should be a way to forcibly kill a program, without any grace period to save changes. But the crappy task manager itself crashes on some occassions. This can be experienced with a Firefox crash in Vista. Is it really so difficult to make such a function available which can be run in a separate memory space, and FORCE kill any app INSTANTLY, no matter what is the fallout.
August 1st, 2008 22:24
What if end process from task manager doesn’t work. I have an app that won’t end process, it gives the normal dialog about it not responding but it never completes killing the process. Most processes can be ended fine, but occasionally i come across ones that refuse to go away. Is there a way to force it to end more abruptly than whatever windows is trying that is failing?