How can I close a program if it won't close?

Currently, the most common operating system is Windows. And a huge number of different programs have been written for it. The trouble is that the vast majority of software from independent developers is not tested very thoroughly, so problems with freezing of the software, and the computer itself as a whole, are not uncommon.

What can I say - even software from professional developers and large brands sometimes also presents the same unpleasant surprises. What to do in such cases and how to close the program if it does not close? There are several proven methods, among which you will certainly be able to find the optimal one for your individual case.

How to close a program if it does not close - proven and working methods

So, let's list the most common, proven and working ways to close a frozen program on the Windows operating system. Some of them are quite easy and do not require special knowledge. Others assume at least intermediate PC proficiency. Some methods make it possible to continue working in the operating system without rebooting, with a second attempt to launch the frozen program. Others leave no choice but to reboot the computer:

1. The first method is the most common, but relevant only in cases where you have free time. This method is simple waiting. After the program freezes, it is enough to wait from 5-10 seconds to 5-10 minutes. Most often, a frozen application either closes on its own or continues to operate as usual. Games, PC maintenance software, work programs - all of this most often requires serious resources, and if the computer does not immediately cope with the increased load, you can experience similar freezes. You can wait a little and the software will continue to work;

2. The second method is also quite common. If you can’t close a frozen program with a cross at the top of its window, you can select its window by left-clicking on its upper border and briefly holding down the ALT+F5 key combination on the keyboard (sometimes they also recommend ALT+F4, but this method does not work Always). With a 70% probability, the program will stop working and the operating system processes will again function as before. After this, you can try to launch the desired program again, waiting a couple of minutes before trying (so that its process in the system finally dies);

3. The third method is quite simple. You can hover your mouse over the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, find the display of the working program there, hover the mouse pointer over this display, right-click and select “Close application/program” from the drop-down menu. Often this method works and the software is forced to shut down;

4. The fourth method is more difficult, but anyone can handle it. If the program is frozen and the previous tips did not help, then you need to close it through the “Task Manager” - it is available in any Windows operating system and can be launched in various ways. For example, by right-clicking on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and selecting the corresponding menu item, or by pressing the key combination CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.

So, in the “Task Manager” you will see a list of all running applications. It will also contain your frozen program. Right-click on it and select “End process” from the menu that appears. In 85% of cases this helps and the program closes immediately. If this does not help, then in the same “Task Manager” we select our frozen program, right-click on it and click on the “Go to process” item. You will see several processes that the frozen program started. You can disable them one by one, until the application stops completely and is completely closed;

5. The fifth method is even more difficult, but everyone can do it. It will come in handy if the program is not in the Task Manager list. This also happens, so don’t be surprised - it’s normal. In the “Dispatcher”, go from the “Programs” tab to the “Processes” tab and, in the list that appears, look for the frozen application by its name. It also shows the load on the computer's processor by current processes and other data - from them it is easy to determine what is hanging on your computer and what is causing the computer to slow down. Closing a process occurs exactly as described in the paragraph above - right-click on the process, in the menu select the option to complete it - that’s it;

6. The sixth method will require the installation of additional software. There are many third-party programs from independent developers that control and monitor processes on your computer, allowing you to manage them a little. We will not list them here, since there are really a lot of them, starting with Total Commander and ending with various little-known applications.

Perhaps you can stop at the wonderful CCleaner program, which allows you to manage the startup of applications, their removal and cleaning of the registry from left entries. There are often situations when a frozen application is a virus or simply a crookedly assembled program. It is sometimes possible to complete its process only by removing and cleaning the computer of all the tails that this software could leave on it.

How to close a program if it does not close - a radical method

The most radical method for closing a program that does not close is to remove it and completely restart the computer. Quite often, users unknowingly or accidentally install some application on their computer, which entails installing a whole package of incomprehensible programs (for example, Chinese ones, which are added to startup and are very difficult to remove, especially if you don’t know what it is). For example Baidu. I wrote about it in detail in this article:

The CCleaner program allows you not only to remove unnecessary applications, but also to clear entries from them in the operating system registry. You can also use it to remove programs from startup, which can be very useful in situations when the computer turns on, and incomprehensible applications are automatically launched immediately, which cannot be closed using ordinary means.

How to use CCleaner? You can learn from this article:

Closing programs, if they do not close themselves, can be done using a radical method, especially if it is illegal software (although if it is possible to reinstall the desired program, then this can also be done). First, we try to remove the process through the “Task Manager” and if it is not there or it cannot be removed for some reason, launch CCleaner, find the problematic one in the list of installed programs and delete it. Most likely, a notification will pop up that the program is running and cannot be deleted.

We ignore it and continue the uninstallation process. After that, go to the “Registry” tab and clean it, removing all references to the problematic program from it. Through this software, you can also find the path where the program is installed and manually delete the folder with its files.

This guarantees you that after restarting the computer, the problematic software will not be launched and will not freeze along with the entire system. After completing these operations, do not forget to remove all tails from the problematic program by running the registry cleaner again.

Imagine the situation: you have a program that is so unstable that it constantly freezes. Sometimes such programs do not even allow the computer to reboot; its operation has to be terminated abnormally - by pressing and holding the power button for a long time.

First of all, you should try closing the program through the standard task manager. Press Alt+Ctrl+Del, in the “Applications” tab, find the frozen program and click “Cancel” the task.

If this doesn't help, go to the "Processes" tab, find the hung process and click "End Process". In most cases, the hung program will then close.

Where the standard task manager cannot cope, a more advanced program - Process Explorer - will help. It is produced by a third party but distributed by Microsoft, is available for free, does not require installation, and works on Windows XP, 7 and 8.

Go to the Microsoft website, download the Process Explorer archive, unpack it and run the procexp.exe file with administrator rights. You will see a list of all running programs. The processes they perform are shown in tree form. It is likely that the task manager was preventing the task manager from closing the problematic program because access to the hung process was blocked by a process in a higher hierarchy. The first column shows how much CPU time each process is consuming. For someone stuck, this value will be close to one hundred percent. You can detect a frozen application by sorting processes by CPU load or RAM consumption.

To kill a hung process, right-click on it and select the Kill Process option or press the Del button.

If the program still hangs, you will need to kill the process tree: select it and select the Kill Process Tree option or press the key combination Shift+Del.

In this guide, we'll look at how to force close a program even if the program won't be closed using task manager. To close outstanding tasks or programs, you can use the taskkill.exe tool or try ending the process tree. If you open " Task Manager", right-click on the process and select Complete the task, then the process should close. If this does not happen, go to the " Intelligence", right click on the process and select " Terminate process tree". Maybe this will help. If not, then let's go deeper and figure out how to force close closed programs and kill the process.

How to force close a program that Task Manager can't terminate

The first thing you need to try is to press select the application you want to close, and then press the button combination Alt+F4. If it doesn't help, then use it taskkill.

1 . Open a command prompt as an administrator and enter the command. You can do this by typing the word “command line” in the “search” of the start menu, right-clicking on the corresponding button and selecting run as administrator.

2 . To kill any specific process, enter the following command Taskkill /IM browser.exe /F. Where /F used to forcefully kill a process and browser.exe This is the process of the Yandex browser I launched.

3 . You can also kill any specific process using its ID, the tasklist command also displays process IDs. You can see the PID column in screenshot 1. To kill any process using its ID, run the command Taskkill /PID 2704 /F

4 . To kill multiple processes by PID, issue the following command Taskkill /PID 15580 7352 14580 12488 /F .

How to close a program if it freezes and stops responding. Why do programs freeze? Who is to blame and what to do? In this article we will try to analyze the main causes and solutions to this problem.

An open program has stopped responding to your actions, the cursor has frozen or turned into an hourglass, the program window itself displays the message “Not responding”, are you clicking on everything, are you nervous and don’t know what to do?

First of all, calm down and finish reading the article. Absolutely everyone has found themselves in this situation; all programs are written by people, so they are not ideal. The main thing we need to understand is how to act correctly in such cases and why this happens.

First, you need to figure out whether the program is really frozen and all the symptoms described above are observed, or whether you simply launched a resource-intensive application or program from which your system does not freeze, but simply slows down.

What not to do if the program freezes

Let's look at the most common mistakes that many novice users make, thereby wasting their time.

— Screaming, hitting the keyboard (it’s definitely not her fault).
- There is no need to try to run the same program again, or especially other programs - this will only worsen the situation.
— Pull out the power, turn it off, reboot (this is a last resort method).

What to do if the program freezes

1. Before moving on to more radical methods, try closing it in the taskbar by right-clicking on the frozen program and selecting the appropriate item.
2. If it doesn’t help, go to the proven method; for this we will need to launch the task manager. You can call the task manager using the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Esc (Windows 7) Ctrl + Alt + Del (Windows XP).

We are interested in the “applications” tab; all applications currently running on the computer are displayed here. We look for the application that is frozen (in my example it is a program) and click → End task. As a rule, this is enough!! Didn't help → point 3.
3. What to do if the program continues to freeze? Go to the next tab → “Processes”. The fact is that any program that you run on your computer has some process or processes associated with it. And the program that is currently frozen also has its own process, which you can find out by right-clicking on the program shortcut and selecting → “Properties”. In my example this is the process → VideoConverter.exe

Selecting the processes tab → look for your process (in my case it’s “VideoConverter.exe”) and click → “end process” or, just to be sure, → right-click on the process → “End process tree”

This is how, using standard Windows tools, you can solve the problem with a frozen program. You can also close a frozen program using third-party programs, for example the program

Our article is devoted to situations when computer games for PCs or smartphones freeze. Surely each of our readers has encountered a similar unpleasant situation and it was not always possible to close a frozen game without rebooting. Let's look at ways to solve such problems!

How can you tell if the game is frozen?

In fact, this is quite simple, since computer games often freeze. They do this at the moment of start, at the moment of loading the main menu, at the moment of loading the game world, and during the gameplay too - the screen darkens, the sound in the game disappears or loops, it simply does not respond to clicks or other actions of yours. Let's see how to get out of this situation.

How to close the game if it freezes?

First, two simple rules about what not to do. Firstly, you should not immediately press the “reboot” button or turn off the power to the PC - more on this below. Secondly, there is no need to run this game again or launch other programs - this will only make the situation worse.

What you need to do is try to close the frozen game and save the computer's working state in order to save possible data from other programs and calmly restart the computer. Modern Windows operating systems have already learned to recognize the game freezing and can close it independently, displaying the following message:

However, sometimes it does not pop up on top of the “failed” application, so you will have to switch to it using the Alt+Tab combination. In other cases, you will have to close the game yourself

In most situations, the tips we have outlined below will allow you to safely close any game. In some cases, the freeze is so severe that the mouse and/or keyboard operate with a long delay. In this case, you will have to take into account the system reaction time and act patiently.

If they don’t work at all and you can’t “get through” to the computer, you will have to act harshly - the very last method, which can only be used in cases where the computer does not respond to your commands at all.

This method will allow you to close a frozen game - you need to click on the “Restart” button of your computer’s system unit or turn off the power and then turn it on again. This hard restart of the computer can harm the hardware, the stability of the operating system and other programs, but it is not always possible to close the game using the methods described below.

How to close the game using the keyboard and key combinations

If you determine that the keyboard is working, then there are several possible options for closing the game. First, try doing this using the Alt+F4 key combination. In a number of older games (pre-2005 release), the Ctrl+Break combination will help.

You can try switching to the desktop using the Win+D combination (minimize all windows) or switching to another application using Alt+Tab. Now you need to see if the taskbar is visible at the bottom of the screen (or where the “Start” button is) and try to close the application by right-clicking on the corresponding icon in the taskbar and selecting “Close window”.

This method allows you to close the game without the “Task Manager”, but it only works in 30% of cases. If this does not help, you will have to call the “Task Manager”. In Windows XP, the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Delete is intended for this; in newer versions of Windows, like Windows 7 / 8.1 or 10, you need to use the combination Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

How to close a game using task manager

The Task Manager window that appears will usually offer the Applications menu first. A frozen game can be removed in this menu, but it is better to immediately remove the process through the next “Processes” menu. In some cases, the mouse will not work, so use the Tab switch to select a line of work menus (the current active menu will be highlighted with a square), and then use the arrows to first go to the desired menu, and then select the process you are looking for.

Now you need to click the Delete button, or select the desired process with the right mouse button and click “End process”. After these actions, 1 to 10 seconds will pass, after which the system should remove the frozen application or game.

Occasionally, to obtain a list of all involved processes, you may need to activate the “Display processes of all users” menu.

Similar actions can be carried out using an alternative program of the standard “Task Manager”, which is called Process Explorer. You will have to perform similar actions.

How to close a game on Steam

This problem is faced by fans of online games launched through specialized launchers and distributed through Steam. The situation can be paradoxical - Steam shows that you are still in the game, while you left it a long time ago and have already forgotten to think. Because of this, it is impossible to either close Steam or launch another game. What should I do?

First, you need to see if the launcher of this game is closed, and you need to check not only in the “Taskbar”, but also in the “Task Manager”. Look to see if the process of the game or its launcher is hanging; if you find anything, close it immediately.

In addition, this problem occurs due to the fault of the Steam client itself, for example, it may occur after the next update. Try to wait for the next update - they come out almost weekly. Check to see if the overlay mode (SteamOverlay.exe) is enabled, which may also be responsible for causing this crash.

If all else fails, you will have to kill the Steam.exe process in the Task Manager.

How to close a game on Windows 8/8.1/10

The latest versions of Windows are focused on the touch capabilities of new computers. Therefore, Windows 8 owners often cannot understand how to close this or that application.

To do this, you need to “hook” the upper part of it with the mouse and drag it to the lower part of the screen. This action can also be done with your finger by “dragging” the application down, and it will first decrease in size, and if you continue to move your finger to the bottom of the screen, then it will close.

In addition to the standard and described above options, there is one more. You need to call up the application panel, which opens in Windows 8 from the upper left corner by moving the mouse down. You need to right-click on the desired application and select the “Close” menu item.

How to close a game while multitasking

Owners of the latest smartphones from Apple face this problem. The iPhone 5S and the iOS 7 operating system introduced full multitasking, allowing the smartphone to keep more than one application in memory without stopping those applications that are in the background. However, with this innovation, Apple device users have found that the iPhone battery drains quickly due to the heavy load on the smartphone, since the OS does not strive to free up memory and processor.

Despite the “swipe up” gesture, which should close unnecessary applications or games, they could remain running in the background. Therefore, for owners of jailbroken iPhones who have updated to the new version, several different unofficial applications have been released for cleaning RAM and closing games in multitasking mode. Such applications include Clear Background Apps, SwitchSpring, Slide2kill, KillApp7 and others.

Developers from Apple declare that the iOS operating system independently monitors the consumption of RAM and closes inactive applications and games as these resources are needed for other applications and games, so use the applications we have indicated at your own peril and risk!