How do you stop a process not responding?

For example, you can kill the explorer.exe process in order to restart it with the following command:

Table of Contents Show

Create a shortcut to kill all not responding tasks in Windows 10
Add Kill All Not Responding Tasks Context Menu in Windows 10
Author: Sergey Tkachenko
How do you kill a not responding process?
How do I force close an unresponsive program?

taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe /f

The /IM switch specifies the image name of the process to be terminated. It also supports wildcard '*' to specify all tasks and a part of the image name.
The switch /F will forcefully terminate the process(es).

The example above gives you an idea on how the taskkill.exe tool can be used. Now, let's see how to kill all not responding tasks.

To kill all not responding tasks in Windows 10, use the following syntax for taskkill.exe:

taskkill.exe /F /FI "status eq NOT RESPONDING"

A new switch, /FI, applies a special filter to select a set of tasks. It also supports wildcard "*", for example: imagename eq acme*.
The status filter in the example above tells the taskill command to find all not responding tasks. The /F switch specifies that all tasks which are hung should be terminated.

The supported filters are as follows:

Filter NameValid OperatorsValid Value(s)STATUSeq, neRUNNING | NOT RESPONDING | UNKNOWNIMAGENAMEeq, neImage namePIDeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, lePID valueSESSIONeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, leSession number.CPUTIMEeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, leCPU time in the format of hh:mm:ss.
hh - hours,mm - minutes,
ss - secondsMEMUSAGEeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, leMemory usage in KBUSERNAMEeq, neUser name in [domain\]user formatMODULESeq, neDLL nameSERVICESeq, neService nameWINDOWTITLEeq, neWindow title

To save your time, you can create a shortcut to terminate tasks quickly.

Contents hide

Create a shortcut to kill all not responding tasks in Windows 10

Add Kill All Not Responding Tasks Context Menu in Windows 10

Create a shortcut to kill all not responding tasks in Windows 10

Right-click the empty space on your Desktop and select New - Shortcut.

In the shortcut's target, specify the following command:

taskkill.exe /F /FI "status eq NOT RESPONDING"

See the screenshot:

Name the shortcut as you wish and set the desired icon.

Now you can right-click it and pin it to the taskbar for faster access.

You can also assign a global keyboard hotkey to the file shortcut you created, so you will be able to close all not responding tasks by pressing that keyboard shortcut. Refer to the following article for step-by-step instructions:

Assign global hotkeys to launch any app in Windows 10

Alternatively, you can integrate the ability to kill not responding tasks with the context menu of the Desktop. Here is how.

To add kill all not responding tasks context menu in Windows 10, you need to apply the following Registry tweak:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\KillNotResponding]
"icon"="taskmgr.exe,-30651"
"MUIverb"="Kill not responding tasks"
"Position"="Top"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\KillNotResponding\command]
@="cmd.exe /K taskkill.exe /F /FI \"status eq NOT RESPONDING\""

Paste the text above inside Notepad.

Then press Ctrl + S or execute the File - Save item from the File menu. This will open the Save dialog. There, type or copy-paste the name "Kill.reg" including quotes.

Double quotes are important to ensure that the file will get the "*.reg" extension and not *.reg.txt. You can save the file to any desired location, for example, you can put it in your Desktop folder.

Double click the file you created, confirm the import operation and you are done!

To save your time, I made ready-to-use Registry files. You can download them here:

Download Registry Files

The undo tweak is included.

You can save your time and use Winaero Tweaker instead. It comes with the following feature:

You can download it here: Download Winaero Tweaker.

RECOMMENDED: Click here to fix Windows issues and optimize system performance

Support us

Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options:

If you like this article, please share it using the buttons below. It won't take a lot from you, but it will help us grow. Thanks for your support!

Advertisment

Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube. View all posts by Sergey Tkachenko

How do you kill a not responding process?

How to Set Up a Desktop Shortcut For Terminating all not Responding Programs.

Click an area of the desktop with your right mouse button to select New..

Select the Shortcut option on the context menu's submenu..

Input this command in the location box: taskkill.exe /f /fi "status eq not responding".

Select the Next option..

How do I force close an unresponsive program?

The easiest and fastest way you can try to force kill a program without Task Manager on Windows computer is to use Alt + F4 keyboard shortcut. You can click the program you want to close, press Alt + F4 key on the keyboard at the same time and don't release them until the application is closed.