What causes this temporary system hog is the lack of resources requested. May be your system is low on random access memory (RAM) and you are requesting a large number of commands, which sadly your system can’t execute in such a small interval of time

Now, what if the desktop enters into a continuous loop where more than one program is not responding. One of the common examples is Firefox and Microsoft Office used in parallel, you open too many tabs or documents and both the programs stop responding.

In such cases you have to open Windows task manager by pressing “Control + Alt+ Del” and manually end the process(s). Why not use alternative ways to kill all the non responsive programs in one shot. This can save time and CPU resources and moreover, you can start your work afresh.

In this tutorial we will learn how to close all the non responsive programs in Windows without using the Task manager.

Kill Non Responsive programs With a Desktop Shortcut

1. First you will have to create a new desktop shortcut in Windows, double clicking the shortcut will kill all the non responding processes at once. Simply right click on any empty area of Windows desktop and select New -> Shortcut

2. Enter the following line in the desktop shortcut wizard

taskkill /F /FI "STATUS eq NOT RESPONDING"

3. Hit “Next” and give the shortcut a name of your choice. Hit “Finish” and you are done

You will see a new desktop shortcut placed in the desktop. To recognize it better, right click the shortcut and choose “Properties”. Then hit the “Change Icon” button under the “Shortcut” tab and select a custom icon for the shortcut you just created.

While the last step isn’t mandatory, assigning an icon to the shortcut makes sure you recognize it when some programs stop responding.

How to use the shortcut

Using the shortcut is quite simple and straight forward. Whenever you find a program which isn’t responding and want to kill the process, instead of opening the Windows task manager and finding the process name, just double click the shortcut. The process will be killed and you can restart the process in a couple of minutes.

Kill Non Responsive programs From Right Click Context Menu

Another smart way of killing all non responsive programs is to add a context menu entry. This is more useful, because you don’t have to search for the Kill all programs shortcut in the desktop. Following are the steps involved:

1. Type regedit in the run command dialog box or in the search box of Windows start menu. This will open the Windows registry editor

2. Find the following key

Windows 7: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell
Windows Vista: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\Shell

3. Right click on the Shell folder from the left pane and select New -> Key

4. Give the key a relevant name e.g “Kill all tasks”. Now right click on this key again and create another sub key, this time name it as command.

5. Select the command key in the left pane and double click the default entry in the right pane. Enter the value data as:

taskkill /F /FI "STATUS eq NOT RESPONDING"

6. You are all done. Right click on any empty area of the desktop and you will see a new context menu entry as “Kill all tasks”

Later if you want to delete the context menu entry, simply navigate to the corresponding key and delete the command sub-key, as created in step 4.

Do you know of any other trick which can automatically kill all non responsive programs in Windows? Share your ideas in the comments section.

Sometimes the application may need a little nudge, sometimes it needs to be assassinated. Process Assassin is a tiny little application (368 KB) can be run from just about anywhere.

Download

1. Download the zip file containing the application from Process Assassin’s website.

2. You will need to unzip the file to use the application. You can choose a spot where you want it to extract to. I chose my 4 gb USB drive. There will be a picture, the app and a readme doc.

How it works

When you start Process Assassin, you are greeted by a simply laid out window.

You will see 5 tabs across the top and several buttons in each tab. The buttons are labeled with popular applications such as Microsoft Office programs, web browsers, OS apps and others like Launchy, Nero and Thunderbird.

If the application is not running the button is grayed out. Once you start Firefox for example, the button comes to life and allows you to click it.

Let’s say Launchy is being stubborn and unresponsive. If Process Assassin is not running, open it up and navigate to the Other Applications tab. The Launchy button should be lit up. All you have to do is click the button and Launchy is terminated.

Other apps

What if you the program you need to close is not one of the default buttons? Well, in the top right corner, there is a big button that says Assassinate.

When you click the button, an Explorer style window pops up. You will need to navigate to the folder where the .exe file for the unresponsive program is.

When you find the .exe file, highlight it and click the Open button.

When you pull the proverbial “trigger”, the application is instantly closed.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a big time saver. Process Assassin has two that make killing an application a bit easier.

Ctrl + W – brings the Assassin window to the front of all other open applications. Doing this allows you to click on one if the default application buttons.

Ctrl + A – opens the Assassination explorer window. This is the same as clicking the button in the top right of the Assassin window.

Conclusion

The application does exactly what it says it does. The simplicity of it makes using it a snap. When you are already a bit stressed because you have to close an application and probably redo a some of the work you just did, it is a good thing you have a straightforward app to use.

A similar application was reviewed a while ago here on MTE. Take a look at Kill, it is a remake of a Linux app.

What other applications do you use to kill an unresponsive program?

intro image: kevindooley

Kill allows you to end the process behind an application simply by clicking on the application Window.  Think of it like having the power to terminate in the tip of your finger.  When you load up Kill and left click on a window, Windows attempts to close it as though you had simply clicked the close button.  This will cause the program to close in its normal way, often prompting you to save your work.

Holding CTRL while you click the application triggers the more dangerous end-process that would normally be done through the Task Manager.  This immediately kills the underlying process and forcing the application to terminate.  No prompts this time.  Here’s a demo of Kill in action.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  In this case, six pictures will tell the story of how to use this amazing little utility.  For my example, I’m going to kill calc.exe, the calculator application that comes with Windows.

Start by downloading Kill from DonationCoder.com.  The current version is 1.0 and the total download is 205KB.

Here you see that Calculator is open and to the left of the program is my desktop icon for kill.exe.  Start the Kill utility by simply double-clicking it.

If you are using Vista, the following warning will likely be displayed.  Click Run to allow the Kill program to continue.  Once loaded, your mouse cursor will change and you should now see a skull and crossbones next to it.

Now click on the window of the application that you want to end.  In this case I’ll click on the Calculator window.

And voila!  The program ends.

Again, this is great for applications that have frozen up and just won’t respond to the conventional mouse clicks to close it.  I really love that this utility is no fuss, no mess – meaning that it doesn’t install itself into your system.  You simply run it when you need it.

If by chance you activate it accidently, you can get your cursor back to normal by pressing the ESC key.

As an additional tip, the author recommends placing Kill in your Quick Launch bar for easy access.