How do I kill a process or application without using Task Manager?

At times you may not be able to access Task Manager as it may be disabled by a group policy, spyware, etc. If you need to end a process manually then you can do so by using a few utilities through a command prompt.

• Open a command prompt
• Type in TASKLIST and press Enter
• You will get a list of processes currently running on the computer.

• Open a command prompt and use the TASKKILL utility to end the process.
• Type in TASKKILL /? to get a list of available commands, however the most common strings used are shown below.
  • TASKKILL /F /IM Control.exe
  • TASKKILL /F /PID 1230
    • /F forces a process to terminate.
    • /IM uses the image name of the process or application
    • /PID uses the process ID to locate and terminate the process.

• If you receive an error stating that “'tasklist' or 'taskkill' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file” then check the C:\Windows\System32\ folder for tasklist.exe and taskkill.exe. There have been occurrences of viruses deleting or renaming those utilities to further impede a user's ability to remove viruses, malware, and spyware.

• Entered : 07/26/2010