How To: Terminate Frozen Programs in Windows With a Shortcut

16 May 2009 3,188 views 9 Comments

If you have been using any of the Window’s Operating systems for a while, you may have noticed how the OS just adores to freeze one of those important applications your working on, leaving all unimportant background tasks to continue. You’re working real hard on a project and crackle, fizz.. pop.. there, the damn application froze. You can’t do anything but wait for the OS to react and ask you whether you want to “End Now” or “Cancel”. Either of the options come after a long timeout and you have to end up closing the application anyway. The OS has this timeout to see whether the application might return to it’s working state or has it actually crashed.

Many people usually fire up the task manager and “end process” the appropriate process, related to the application. Now, there seems to be an alternative to this. A better, faster and an efficient method to get rid of the frozen application. With a simple tweak, you can create a desktop shortcut which will automatically close down any of the “Not Responding” category applications, every time you double click on that shortcut!

To create this shortcut, all you have to do is,

Right click anywhere on the empty desktop
Choose New -> New Shortcut
In the text field, Enter the following text as the location: taskkill.exe /f /fi “status eq not responding”
and click on done.

You can ofcourse, customize the icon to match your desktop and make it look less ugly. This tweak is compatible with all versions of Windows, inclusive of Windows XP, Vista and Seven. Enjoy!

9 Comments »

Mia said:

wow! that’s an awesome trick!! photoshop pisses me off so much!! i hope this helps me! THANK YOU!! <3

# 16 May 2009

Sonny said:

Yeah.. My excel spreadsheets get hung all the time.. for no reason! I re-installed it like so many times.. it doesnt even let me access the taskmanager.. i hope this helps.. can i put the shortcut in my taskbar [quick launch bar]? thanks..

# 18 May 2009

Sonny said:

Nevermind.. :P It works beautifully from the taskbar too! :) Awesome post.. thanks! PLEASE POST SOME MORE STUFF LIKE THIS!

# 18 May 2009

Pranav Shirodkar (author) said:

Yeah, actually, even i keep the shortcut in my taskbar and my dock [Object Dock] :) Sure helps.. Yes, i’ll try to post more such tricks.. Thanks for commenting..

Regards,
Pranav

# 18 May 2009