Windows force close

You may be tempted to simply End task directly from that pop-up menu, but don't. While this might be perfectly fine for some programs, doing this "the long way" as we're describing here is a much more effective way to force quit a program more on this below. Right-click or tap-and-hold the highlighted item you see and choose End process tree.

You should be in the Details tab if you're using Windows 10 or Windows 8, or the Processes tab if you're using an older version of Windows. Click or tap End process tree in the warning that appears. In Windows 10, for example, this warning looks like this:.

This is a good thing — it means that not only will this individual program you want to be closed actually close , it means Windows will also end any processes that that program started, which are probably also hung up but much harder to track down yourself. That's it! The program should have closed immediately but it could take several seconds if there were lots of child processes connected to the frozen program or the program was using a lot of system memory.

Easy as pie Here are a few more ideas if Task Manager didn't do the trick:. That's probably not advice you've seen elsewhere, so let's explain. In some cases, you can actually give a problematic program a little nudge off the cliff, so to speak, pushing it into a full-blown frozen state, sending a message to Windows that it should probably be terminated.

To do this, do as many "things" as you can think to do in the program, even if they don't do anything because the program is crashing.

For example, click on menu items over and over, drag items around, open and close fields, try exiting half a dozen times—whatever you want, so long as you do them in the program you're hoping to force quit.

Assuming this works, you'll get a window with a [program name] is not responding heading, usually with options like Check for a solution and restart the program , Close the program , Wait for the program to respond , or End Now in older versions of Windows.

Tap or click Close the program or End Now to do just that. We have one last trick to force quit a program, but it's an advanced one. A particular command in Windows, called taskkill , does just that—it kills the task you specify, completely from the command line. This trick is great in one of those hopefully rare situations where some kind of malware has prevented your computer from working normally, you still have access to Command Prompt , and you know the filename of the program you want to "kill.

Open Command Prompt. There's usually no need to open an elevated Command Prompt , and any method you use to get it open is fine. Execute the taskkill command like this:. If in the very rare situation that you don't know the filename, but do know the PID process ID , you can execute taskkill like this instead:. If you get an ERROR response that says that a process was not found , check that the filename or PID you used with the taskkill command was entered correctly.

The first PID listed in the response is the PID for the program you're closing and the second is usually for explorer. If even taskkill doesn't work, you're left with having to restart your computer , essentially a force-quit for every program running Software programs and apps sometimes stop responding and won't close on Apple, Linux, and other operating systems and devices, too.

It's certainly not a problem exclusive to Windows machines. On a Mac, force quitting is best done from the Dock or via the Force Quit option from the Apple menu. In Linux, the xkill command is one really easy way to force quit a program.

Open a terminal window, type it, and then click the open program to kill it. To force quit an app on iPad and iPhone devices, double-press the Home button, find the app you want to close, and then swipe it up as if you're tossing it right off the device. Android devices have a similar process: swipe up from the bottom of the screen and then swipe the unresponding app up even further, off the screen.

Or, for some Android devices, tap the square multitasking button, find the app that's not responding, and then toss it off the screen Click the Processes or Applications tab. Select the unresponsive app from the list. Click End task. Did this summary help you? Yes No. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers.

Please log in with your username or email to continue. No account yet? Create an account. Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article Steps. Related Articles. Article Summary. Open the Task Manager. Click the Processes tab. It's located near the upper-left corner of the Task Manager window.

Select the unresponsive application from the list. Click the unresponsive application name. In Windows 10 and 8, this will be under the "Apps" header.

It's in the bottom-right corner of the Task Manager window. This will terminate the unresponsive application within a few seconds. If the task will not end, right-click on the app name. Then, end the task for the process. Try to restart your computer manually. If that doesn't work, you'll have to force a power-off. Not Helpful 4 Helpful 9. Android Open the Settings app on the Android device.

Scroll the list and tap Apps, Applications or Manage apps. Scroll the list to find the app to force quit. Select Start Task Manager. In the Windows Task Manager window, select Applications.

Select the window or program to close and then select End Task. Then select Task Manager from the list. Click on the application you want to force quit. Click End task to close the program.