Really killing a process in Windows

Asked 8/9, 2008 at 15:48 Answered 21/6, 2022 at 17:9

406

Occasionally a program on a Windows machine goes crazy and just hangs. So I'll call up the task manager and hit the "End Process" button for it. However, this doesn't always work; if I try it enough times then it'll usually die eventually, but I'd really like to be able to just kill it immediately. On Linux I could just kill -9 to guarantee that a process will die.

This also could be used for writing batch scripts and writing batch scripts is programming.

Is there some program or command that comes with Windows that will always kill a process? A free third-party app would be fine, although I'd prefer to be able to do this on machines I sit down at for the first time.

Biforked answered 8/9, 2008 at 15:48 Comment(8)

Stray processes is a common enough problem in programming that I have to disagree; this is not an off-topic question. – Billibilliard 3/9, 2015 at 18:10

I deal with process management every day as a developer. This is totally ON topic for me! – Obduliaobdurate 5/10, 2015 at 19:25

I strongly advise against deleting this question. +195 and it's a really early google hit for the question involved. – Longo 26/4, 2016 at 20:38

"unless they directly involve tools used primarily for programming" I ran into this issue in regards to Visual Studio keeping a process running which made me unable to kill it. Closing Visual Studio helped kill the problematic process. – Glyndaglynias 25/7, 2016 at 14:18

You can use the Stop-Process powershell cmdlet. – Knobloch 12/12, 2016 at 16:36

Aaaaaaaaaand it's closed :/ – Ablution 4/12, 2017 at 7:1

If another program has a reference to the process handle the program won't exit until released. It's known as a zombie program - there is nothing left in the program. If it was to exit it would cause the other program to crash. – Cynicism 11/4, 2019 at 6:29

Kill a process with a known name, PID or wildcard pattern: https://mcmap.net/q/87593/-how-do-i-kill-a-processes-running-a-given-executable – Bitty 11/4 at 7:16

334

"End Process" on the Processes-Tab calls TerminateProcess which is the most ultimate way Windows knows to kill a process.

If it doesn't go away, it's currently locked waiting on some kernel resource (probably a buggy driver) and there is nothing (short of a reboot) you could do to make the process go away.

Have a look at this blog-entry from wayback when: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/08/17/unkillable-processes.aspx

Unix based systems like Linux also have that problem where processes could survive a kill -9 if they are in what's known as "Uninterruptible sleep" (shown by top and ps as state D) at which point the processes sleep so well that they can't process incoming signals (which is what kill does - sending signals).

Normally, Uninterruptible sleep should not last long, but as under Windows, broken drivers or broken userpace programs (vfork without exec) can end up sleeping in D forever.

Evanevander answered 8/9, 2008 at 15:52 Comment(17)

While I hate that this is the correct answer, there's no doubt in my mind that it is more correct than taskkill below.... stupid buggy drivers! – Scientistic 22/7, 2013 at 21:3

Slighly less annoying than a reboot is to log off/on again. Still lose work, but not quite so much time perhaps. – Ashes 17/9, 2013 at 13:19

Apparently this is not the "most ultimate way" to kill a process. There are some processes in Windows where after you destroy them with Task Manager they just instantly respawn as if nothing happened... :/ – Marylandmarylee 10/7, 2014 at 3:22

that's caused by some other process making sure the initial process is always running. You killed your old instance and a new one has been started by the watchdog – Evanevander 11/7, 2014 at 6:1

How can I know what is making this process go into uninterruptible sleep? – Trilobate 21/9, 2014 at 14:28

This answer is not correct at all. "End Process" is not the most ultimate way to kill processes, as it can't kill service processes (for example). taskkill /f is the most ultimate. – Kurd 14/1, 2015 at 7:3

This should not be the accepted answer. The equivalent of Linux's "kill -9" command is the command "TaskKill /f". Obviously it needs to be run in an elevated command prompt. – Splotch 24/3, 2015 at 5:41

TaskKill /f only calls the TerminateProcess API. It does exactly the same thing as the Task Manager (though, you're right on that, with elevated privileges). – Evanevander 24/3, 2015 at 12:31

Using Task Manager alone to try to kill a process is equivalent to calling TaskKill without the /f option. – Splotch 26/3, 2015 at 2:27

@colacX it's an error not a feature. It's stuck waiting for a signal so it can't hear any signals to end. – Phosphate 21/5, 2015 at 19:36

In Windows 8, Task Manager no longer has the "End Process" button. It only has the "End Task" button, which attempts to terminate a process in a much gentler way. – Interaction 3/6, 2015 at 13:50

@ThrowawayAccount3Million No, it just hides it better - you'll find the old list of processes with the familiar TerminateProcess-calling button on the Details tab :) – Flyweight 22/10, 2015 at 11:55

I had success just now killing an unkillable java.exe process, using the info here that it might be waiting on a device driver. I disconnected the serial connection that I knew it was listening to, and the process died immediately. – Zygospore 23/8, 2018 at 20:34

A cached version of the dead link: web.archive.org/web/20090530042534id_/http://blogs.technet.com/… – Pfeiffer 12/6, 2020 at 1:20

In my case an instance of the Tomcat server won't shut down. Neither with 'End Process' nor with taskkill or the process explorer. I've used admin rights for all the cases, but the message 'Access denied' appears. This is hardly a driver problem. Any ideas how this can be analyzed or how the root cause can be found out? – Kailyard 19/11, 2021 at 4:50

@Kailyard Isn't Tomcat running as a service? Why not just stop the service then? – Mesopause 17/10, 2022 at 6:55

@TheincredibleJan It is running as a service. But sometimes Windows is not able to stop a service. That can happen if Tomcat has run out of memory. Then it takes either very long (many hours!) until the process is stopped or the server needs to be restarted. What cannot be done at any time on a production server. – Kailyard 24/10, 2022 at 6:14

265

taskkill /im myprocess.exe /f

The "/f" is for "force". If you know the PID, then you can specify that, as in:

taskkill /pid 1234 /f

Lots of other options are possible, just type taskkill /? for all of them. The "/t" option kills a process and any child processes; that may be useful to you.

Midlothian answered 8/9, 2008 at 15:49 Comment(15)

Just a note. This is particularly useful if you are writing scripts for server management. kill.exe (from the NT Res kit) will cause a program to exit, but if you have a crash handler installed (particularly windbg), it can cause issues as the OS will see the killed process as having crashed, and attempt to debug it. Taskkill will not result in this issue. – Pronucleus 2/10, 2009 at 14:43

I guess the taskmanager call taskkill internally? they are actually samething? – Howsoever 17/10, 2012 at 8:57

@lzprgmr - taskkill and "end task" probably both call the same underlying windows function "TerminateProcess" msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/… – Midlothian 17/10, 2012 at 14:51

THis is no more effective then "end process" from task manager. – Abstain 7/4, 2013 at 12:58

Using /T will also kill any processes started by that process (like using "end process tree" in task manager) – Lallans 19/9, 2013 at 12:58

I've been trying to forcefully kill SugarSync.exe without having to reboot (since restarting SugarSync twice before it really gets going makes it work again), but taskkill /T /F /IM SugarSync.exe doesn't work--even though it claims "SUCCESS" – Destination 2/4, 2014 at 22:38

Based on other answers I've found online, I tried again, this time using PsExec -sid cmd.exe , verifying with whomai that I am indeed "nt authority\system", and running taskkill /T /F /IM SugarSync.exe . (From Sysinternals.) No dice. It again claims "SUCCESS" but the process is still showing in Task Manager. Ditto if I find the process ID and run pskill -t 5652 – Destination 2/4, 2014 at 23:11

Beautiful, I have been looking for this command forever (I should note that I came here looking for a way to end process from the command line, so the fact that it is not "more powerful is ok with me) – Zeist 21/7, 2014 at 15:1

Taskkill is not a general windows 7 command (only in the ultimate or professional). Only the much inferior tskill is part of all recent windows versions. – Kenlee 27/12, 2014 at 20:6

THANK YOU! taskkill /pid 1234 /f does work when End Task refuses to work! WOW! – Miskolc 28/4, 2015 at 16:9

@Eddie. This IS more effective then "end process" from task manager. I just killed a process with it, task manager refused to kill. Even if it may run the same code under the hood (I'm not saying it does) you have the freedom to run this command with different privilege levels. – Immovable 28/9, 2017 at 9:55

ERROR: The process "RMPARTUSB.exe" with PID 5224 could not be terminated. Reason: There is no running instance of the task

If there's no running instance how does it have a PID? – Ablution 2/1, 2018 at 5:29

@AaronFranke Try "tasklist" and note the PID beside RMPARTUSB.exe in that list. Then run taskkill /pid ### with the correct PID in place of ###. – Midlothian 2/1, 2018 at 5:46

@Slava: You were using the wrong button in Task Manager. "End Task" button sends a polite request, similar to kill -TERM "End Process" button calls TerminateProcess, similar to kill -9 – Votyak 5/7, 2022 at 15:49

"different privilege levels" are not a valid argument - you can run task manager with "different privilege levels", too. – Mesopause 17/10, 2022 at 6:59

Process Hacker has numerous ways of killing a process.

(Right-click the process, then go to Miscellaneous->Terminator.)

Harquebusier answered 7/6, 2014 at 8:17 Comment(17)

Can't find much in the way of corroboration, as searching for this just yields millions of FREE DOWNLOAD!!! links. But it does what it says it does, virus risks and all. – Titbit 20/6, 2014 at 2:49

This program worked ok for us. We killed two programs which were unkillable with the other tools mentioned in this thread. – Heyerdahl 7/7, 2014 at 16:48

@Mehrdad Could you explain how you got to that screen? – Rounds 17/7, 2014 at 6:3

@Nuzzolilo: Sure! Right-click the process, go to Miscellaneous->Terminator. – Harquebusier 17/7, 2014 at 6:4

Does not work on all processes, I had one that survived all options. – Karelian 22/3, 2015 at 21:42

That one worked where Task Manager, Process Explorer and taskkill failed. Thank you for the tip! – Felon 18/10, 2015 at 19:38

@Zitrax: I think the only thing you can try at that point is turning it off and on again. =P – Harquebusier 18/12, 2015 at 8:44

The funny thing here is that this program got stuck while I tried to kill another process. So I had to use Task Manager to kill this program. :-) – Lantern 30/12, 2015 at 18:23

It bluescreened my computer. The process went away after the reboot. Good job... -.-' – Nibble 2/3, 2016 at 14:24

I had this problem when closing an application launched from Visual Studio in Debug Mode and I have solved using ProcessHacker and "Miscellaneous->Detach From Debugger" on the process.. – Rutheruthenia 10/5, 2016 at 13:36

@Mehrdad, So when we do normal End Process from task manager, which option is it equivalent to? – Heterochromous 20/7, 2016 at 21:12

@Pacerier: The first one. – Harquebusier 21/7, 2016 at 1:31

process hacker helped me kill the chrome.exe crashing process – Austin 12/9, 2017 at 18:49

Unfortunately Terminator is removed in v2.39 :( – Gasper 16/11, 2017 at 14:12

@raymai97: Oh no :( – Harquebusier 16/11, 2017 at 18:11

There is no Terminator option in Process Hacker 2. – Ablution 2/1, 2018 at 5:32

Use Task-Manager to Force the Program to Quit Perform Following Steps for this: - Open Task Manager using the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC Keyboard shortcut. - Click On Processes Tab - Select appropriate Image name which you are looking for quit - Click on 'End Process' button Thanks. – Stalk 16/4, 2018 at 15:57

JosepStyons is right. Open cmd.exe and run

taskkill /im processname.exe /f

If there is an error saying,

ERROR: The process "process.exe" with PID 1234 could not be terminated. Reason: Access is denied.

then try running cmd.exe as administrator.

Marleen answered 3/5, 2014 at 7:28 Comment(5)

Running as administrator, the error changes. It now says:

ERROR: The process with PID 17888 (child process of PID 17880) could not be terminated. Reason: There is no instance of the task.

and it is referring to the parent PID 17880. As it can't find the parent, it won't kill the orphaned child. :( – Glebe 7/6, 2015 at 14:58

"you must kill child process too if any spawned to kill successfully your process" try this #12529463 – Marleen 8/6, 2015 at 10:26

In my case, the zombie process I told it to kill was the only child and there was no parent, though the zombie still thought it had a parent. In my case, resolved by using the Windows 8.1 Settings Advanced Repair System path, but canceling from actually wiping any disk, and just doing a full forced reboot. The regular shutdown and reboot is really sleep/hibernation (to save time on startup). Non-trivial getting it to do a full shutdown. – Glebe 9/6, 2015 at 13:12

"Access is denied" means that the process is already in the process of being closed. For example if you had just attempted to close it earlier. You'll need to wait till it gets closed. – Heterochromous 20/7, 2016 at 21:14

taskkill results under admin rights: Access is denied. – Inveracity 11/4, 2018 at 11:12

Get process explorer from sysinternals (now Microsoft)

Process Explorer - Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs

Birkle answered 8/9, 2008 at 15:49 Comment(1)

That does provide more info (and some limited ability to search for lock handles) but I've not had any more success at killing tasks with it than with basic Task Manager. Certain processes (like anti-virus, and SugarSync.exe) simply refuse to die. – Destination 2/4, 2014 at 22:39

One trick that works well is to attach a debugger and then quit the debugger.

On XP or Windows 2003 you can do this using ntsd that ships out of the box:

ntsd -pn myapp.exe

ntsd will open up a new window. Just type 'q' in the window to quit the debugger and take out the process.

I've known this to work even when task manager doesn't seem able to kill a process.

Unfortunately ntsd was removed from Vista and you have to install the (free) debbugging tools for windows to get a suitable debugger.

Olden answered 8/9, 2008 at 16:0 Comment(5)

Thank you SO MUCH for this. Add "-c q" (w/o quotes) to autoquit, which makes it ideal process killer. – Sisley 10/5, 2012 at 21:43

When Visual Studio and an application being debugged both hang, attach and kill the old instance of VS. The killer can be a new instance of VS, which can then open the old project and allow you to continue working. – Tool 25/10, 2013 at 23:30

I can't figure out how to download anything from that link other than winsdk_web.exe, which does nothing. – Briareus 17/3, 2014 at 19:57

You can now get it in the Windows 10 SDK by running the installer and then unchecking everything but "Debugging Tools for Windows" (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/…) – Kirkwall 24/5, 2020 at 9:12

this doesn't work if the unkillable process is something you were debugging when VS crashed, since the phantom process still believes it's attached to a debugger. Even invoking VS again and trying to attach back will error. I had to restart my computer. – Dejong 4/10, 2022 at 0:31

setup an AT command to run task manager or process explorer as SYSTEM.

AT 12:34 /interactive "C:/procexp.exe"

If process explorer was in your root C drive then this would open it as SYSTEM and you could kill any process without getting any access denied errors. Set this for like a minute in the future, then it will pop up for you.

Histopathology answered 15/12, 2012 at 16:46 Comment(1)

I get the following warning when trying this, so it seems to no longer work: "Warning: Due to security enhancements, this task will run at the time expected but not interactively. Use schtasks.exe utility if interactive task is required ('schtasks /?' for details)." – Locomobile 3/1, 2014 at 8:52

FYI you can sometimes use SYSTEM or Trustedinstaller to kill tasks ;)

google quickkill_3_0.bat

sc config TrustedInstaller binPath= "cmd /c TASKKILL /F  /IM notepad.exe
sc start "TrustedInstaller"

Metaphosphate answered 28/2, 2019 at 16:35 Comment(0)

I had this issue too, here is how I solved it.

1/ Open the « task manager «

2/ Locate the application name in the list

3/ Once found, right click on its name then click on « properties »

4/ In the properties interface, click on « security «

5/ Click on « edit » to change permissions

6/ « Deny » all permissions for all users, click on « apply » then « ok »

7/ click on « advanced » for special permissions settings

8/ Remove permissions for all users

9/ click on « apply » then « ok »

10/ click on « apply » then « ok » again

11/ you can now kill the process on task manager as well as uninstall the app of you want to.

Beaded answered 21/4, 2021 at 3:3 Comment(0)

When ntsd access is denied, try:

ZeroWave was designed to be a simple tool that will provide a multilevel termination of any kind of process.

ZeroWave is also a easy-to-use program due to its simple installation and its very friendly graphical interface.

ZeroWave has three termination modes and with the "INSANE" mode can terminate any kind of process that can run on Windows.

It seems that ZeroWave can't kill avp.exe

Eructate answered 13/12, 2011 at 4:59 Comment(0)

wmic process where processid="11008" call terminate

Headfirst answered 21/6, 2022 at 17:9 Comment(0)

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