How to Eliminate a Hung Process without Restarting the Computer

ID: Q171773

The information in this article applies to:

SYMPTOMS

If a program or process is not responding (hung) waiting for user input, and cannot accept input or be terminated, usually the only way to terminate the process is to restart the computer.


WORKAROUND

If you cannot restart the computer to terminate the hung process, use the Kill.exe program from the Windows NT Resource Kit to terminate the process for the hung program without restarting the computer.

Use the process button of Task Manager in Windows NT 4.0 to identify the process ID (PID) of the hung application or, in Windows NT 3.51, use Pviewer.exe or Tlist.exe to identify the process ID.

If the process was started with AT Scheduler, then use AT to schedule the kill command and terminate the hung process.

For example:

AT 10:30:40 C:<resource kit root>\kill -f 175
NOTE: In many cases the process name will work if it is unique. This will terminate the program with Process ID of 175.


MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Q138340 Trouble Quitting Program Started with AT.EXE Scheduler

Additional query words: NT Backup 


Keywords          : kbenv kberrmsg ntbackup NTSrvWkst 
Version           : WinNT:3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: February 23, 1999