It’s infrequent, of course, but sometimes you can encounter situations where, after closing the program in the “Task Manager”, the process responsible for its functioning does not end or some additional (related) application services continue to work. Moreover, the system, in addition to everything, can report that the user does not have enough rights to complete a certain process (access is denied). Why this happens and how to stop unnecessary or freezing programs, read the material below.
The process in the "Task Manager" does not end (access is denied). Why?
To understand which solution to resolve the problem to use in each case, first you need to find out the reasons why they arise. Why in the "Task Manager" does not complete the process indicating the lack of access rights?
Indeed, sometimes this may be due to the fact that the user is logged in as an administrator and is trying to terminate the critical system service or process launched by another user. However, the impossibility of stopping the operation of an application is mainly connected not even with system processes, but with programs that could be installed on a user's computer spontaneously (viruses, adware applets, etc.). Usually they can block the shutdown. But to deal with such manifestations of behavior and system, and user programs or services can be quite simple.
System reboot
If the process in the "Task Manager" does not end, what should I do first? As a rule, ordinary users act quite simply. If for some reason in the "Task Manager" of Windows 10 the process does not end, they simply reboot the system. It is clear that a complete restart also leads to a stop of all services. But what if, after a reboot, the process is activated again? But some processes launched with the system cannot be tracked even in the standard startup section.
However, if the user logged in not under the administrator’s account, but under his own account, as is already clear, you just need to change the user.
If you do not want to constantly jump from one record to another, you can turn off the administrator "account" completely by writing the command "net user Admin active: no" (without quotes) on the command line. After that, all programs will start only with administrator rights (for some applications, even security warnings for the UAC account control service will not be issued, which many users are incredibly annoying).
Termination of active processes through the command line
But the above actions may not always have a positive effect. What to do if in the "Task Manager" the process does not end, which, say, overloads the central processor or uses RAM too hard? In such a situation, the best tool out of those available on Windows systems will be the command console (cmd).
It must be run on behalf of the administrator (if the superuser account is not disabled), and then use the taskkill command (all information about additional attributes can be viewed by entering the string "taskkill /?".
Of the entire list, we are most interested in the attributes “/ F” and “/ IM”, which are added after the main command. What does it look like? Suppose that in our “Task Manager” the Google Chrome process does not end. The command to force the application to stop will look like this: "taskkill / F / IM Chrome.exe" (again, without quotes). As already clear, such a solution is acceptable for executable program files. If you use the additional key “/ T”, when you enter the main command to shut down the selected application, all child processes will be automatically terminated.
Stopping processes with identifiers
If in this way in the “Task Manager” the process that was selected by the user does not end, for example, if the name of the executable file for the problem program or service is entered incorrectly, the process can be stopped with an identifier.
It can be viewed in the "Task Manager" itself, additionally activating the display of the column with the process ID. The main command in this case will take the following form: “taskkill / F PID 0000”, where 0000 is the process identifier defined in the “Task Manager”.
Microsoft tip
In principle, the problem associated with the fact that the program manager does not end the process of a program can be solved by following the advice of Microsoft specialists, which are published on the support page. The bottom line is to download a special archive from the site containing the PSTools toolbox, then unzip it to your hard drive and move the PsExec.exe file or PsExec64.exe object, depending on the system architecture, to the root of the system partition (drive “C” ), and then through the command console run the command “c: \ psexec -i -d -s taskmgr.exe” (without quotes). After that, in the "Task Manager" you will need to perform all the necessary actions related to stopping certain processes, then close the "Manager" and delete the source PsExec file from the system partition.
Note: using this method even on the corporation's website is recommended only at your own peril and risk.
Using the Process Explorer Utility
It is much easier to use the small Process Explorer application , which is an alternative to the Task Manager, but with advanced features. The advantage of this program is that you do not need to install it on your hard drive, since the application is initially portable and runs from a single executable file. After starting the program, it is enough to select the desired incomplete process or even a whole process tree with child applets in it, selecting the Kill Process or Kill Process Tree commands from the PCM menu.
In addition to “killing” unnecessary processes and tasks, this utility also provides additional information. So, for example, if it is required, you can quite simply find out which program is running this or that process.
Unlocking access to process files
Finally, if the completion of certain processes cannot be done only because of blocking access to the file responsible for it, it may very well be possible to correct the situation through the use of the Unlocker utility.
First, as already understood, access to the source file is restored (you can find it directly in the “Task Manager” by selecting the file location view from the PCM menu), and then the process ends in the usual way.
Viral exposure problems
Viruses, unfortunately, can also restrict access to stop processes and services. And far from always this is directly connected with the viral applets themselves. If such a situation is observed, for starters it is recommended to check the system with some portable antivirus, and if it is impossible to neutralize the threats, refer to the Kaspersky Rescue Disk program, with which you can boot before starting the system from removable media, and then perform a deep scan, which includes yourself even random access memory.
Brief summary
That, in fact, is all that concerns the forced completion of processes in the Task Manager. As for the best tool, the easiest alternative is the Process Explorer manager. If such a program is not at hand, the command line is also suitable. The only condition for executing all the above commands is the start of the console itself with administrator rights.