The Task Killer In Windows XP!

[Dashken]

Unknown to most users, there is a task killer lurking in Windows XP. Join us on this mini-guide as Dashken tells you all about this hidden killer and why it can be a very powerful tool for those who know its secrets!

Link : The Task Killer In Windows XP!

[slash]

hmm.. doesnt seem to work for me
i created my own, ran it, cpu usage went up to 100%, none of the processes was killed.
downloaded the zip, copy n paste over, same thing

[Dashken]

What processes were you trying to kill? I'm supposed you are on Windows XP?

[nekked]

didnt work for me either, did exactly what was described in acrticle, was trying to kill firefox.exe

all it does is pop up a command prompt that sits there and does nothing............sweet

did the author try to see if this even worked?

[NaRyanUk]

Trying it as described on website did not work, nor did the bat file.
However if I typed it in as

C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskkill /im appname.exe /f
instead of
taskkill /im appname.exe /f
it worked fine.

So give that a try.
just replace the c:\windows bit if you have windows installed to a different drive or directory.

[peaz]

sometimes, taskkill cannot force kill a running process. For this case I usually use another utility called pskill.exe. You can get it here. http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsKill.html just use this instead of the taskkill utility.

The batch file concept still works with this utility of course.

Oh, one more tip, maybe you can try to use the process name instead of PID. that's because PIDs aren't always the same ID everytime a process runs.

Lastly, PSkill supports wildcards like * and ? for the process name

Good luck and have fun!

[Dashken]

Originally Posted by nekked

didnt work for me either, did exactly what was described in acrticle, was trying to kill firefox.exe

all it does is pop up a command prompt that sits there and does nothing............sweet

did the author try to see if this even worked?

LOL! Of course I did try it when I wrote that article.

Just tried on firefox with the below commands..

@echo off
taskkill /im firefox.exe /f

Works fine. My firefox just disappeared. But it's not recommended for firefox coz when you forcefully close it, it will assume it has crashed. So, when you start it the next time, it will ask you whether you want to restore the crashed session.

I used to use Pskill but I forgot why I stopped. Hmm...

If taskkill doesn't work, can try with the full path name C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskkill as mentioned by NaRyanUk.

Edited: Downloaded and unzipped pskill and my McAfee detected it as "potentially unwanted application" but after exclude it from McAfee's scan, it runs fine as well.

Maybe I should edit the article with the full path of taskkill and also maybe add in Pskill.

[uncle.fester]

when I tried to use the HOSTNAME filter to shutdown my DVR box, I got an error stating "the search filter cannot be recognized".

I then did the /? for help, and I have a different list of filter options than what is shown in the guide. I have a "MODULES" filter, which references DLL's, and I do NOT have the HOSTNAME filter.

Any ideas?

btw, I AM running WinXP Pro, with SP2 (version 5.1.2600 according to the command line)

[Dashken]

Seems like I got the same commands as well on my SP2. Have to confirm whether this Microsoft documentation is from SP1 when I get home later. Sorry for all the inconvenience.

So far, I've only managed to get taskkill work on my pc/laptop but not a remote pc. Anyone who can, appreciate if you can share your experience.

Well, I can't seem to get it to work with PSkill too.

[peaz]

remote pc? it should work... technically.

Taskkill does the job well, the only problem i found with it is that it can't force kill a task. that's why i switch to pskill

Dashken. try this other kill utility i use at work.