If a program, application, or app is not responding, you can force quit it. Here’re the steps to force quit an app or program in Windows 10.
When a program is running either in the foreground or background, if it encounters an unrecoverable error or if there is something wrong with how it functions, it will freeze and not respond. In fact, when a program is not responding, Windows shows the “Not Responding” message on the title bar. Often times, a program that is in a Not Responding state might abuse the system resources like CPU, Memory, and Hard Disk.
When a program or app is not responding, you either have force quit or close the application. Typically, Windows tries to safely close or recover the program just so that you don’t lose any potential unsaved work or data. However, if Windows is taking too long or if the program is using up all the system resources, you can manually force quit the app. There are a variety of ways to do it. I will show how you can kill a process or force quit an application using task manager and Command Prompt.
Without further ado, let me show the steps to force quit app or program in Windows 10.
Jump to:
- Steps to Force Quit Program from Task Manager
- Force Quit Application from Command Prompt with TaskKill Command
Steps to Force Quit Program from Task Manager
The task manager provides a simple way to quickly force quit or kill a not responding program or app. Here are the steps you should follow.
- Right-click on the taskbar.
- Select the “Task Manager” option from the list to open the Task Manager.
- Go to the “Processes” tab in the task manager.
- Here, find and select the process you want to end. If the process is the Not Responding state, you will see “(Not Responding)” next to the process name.
- After selecting the process, click on the “End Task” button.
- If you see a warning message, click on the “Ok” button.
- Close the Task Manager.
That is all. As soon as you click the End Task button, Windows will force close the program. The effect will not be instant and may take a couple of seconds to quit the application. So, don’t worry if the application did not close immediately.
Force Quit Application from Command Prompt with TaskKill Command
You can force quit or kill any process directly from the command line. For that, you need to use the TaskKill command along with the PID (Process ID) or process name of the program or app you want to force quit.
- Open the Start menu.
- Search for “Command Prompt“.
- Right-click on the Command Prompt and select the “Run as administrator” option.
- After opening the elevated cmd window, type “tasklist” and press Enter.
- Note down the process name of the program you want to force quit.
- Next, execute the below command to force quit the app in Windows 10. Replace “<program>” with the actual program/process name you got with the tasklist command.
taskkill /im “<program>.exe” - Close the command window.
That is all. As soon as you execute the command, Windows will kill that process or program. Just like with the task manager, the effect will not be instant and may take a couple of seconds to quit the application. So, don’t worry if the application did not close immediately.
I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, check out how to stop a program without task manager in Windows 10.
You left out the steps where the operating systems asks you if you want to kill the task, then trying to solve the problem itself, forcing you to dismiss two dialogues before doing what you told it to do. I don’t appreciate how “helpful” Windows has become to accommodate the stupids.