How to End a Process without the use of Task Manager

Ending Processes in Windows without using the Task Manager

Introduction

There was a time, when only one process could be run at any given time, and the reigning operating system of those times was DOS. But, today there are a lot of processes running at the same time, and to track them we use Windows task manager or certain commands typed in the command prompt. Each method has its advantages of course, but here, well mostly focus on the command prompt method.

Normally, by default, the Windows Task Manager will NOT show the ProcessID, but you can change this by choosing View->Select Columns, and check mark what you'd like to see, including PID.

If you do this, you can see the ProcessID's like this image:

Using DOS command prompt

Some windows permissions settings may keep you from accessing the Task Manager.  Fortunately, we can go back to the old fashioned command prompt (DOS).  This is usually found in the Start Menu under Programs->Accessories.  Or, you could start your own by going ot Start->Run and then typing "cmd.exe" and hitting Enter.

From a command prompt, you can type "tasklist" to get the same information as is shown in the Task Manager window above.

To kill as task, you could then specify which task to end by using a command line command called "taskkill.exe".  You could use the process ID from the tasklist above.  You can also specify the process name (referred to as Image Name) by using the /IM option. Here's an example:

taskkill   /IM   notepad.exe

You can kill the task by using the /PID option.  Example:

taskkill    /PD   3154

both commands (tasklist and taskkill) each have more options that you can check with their built-in help.  Just type the command and see what else you can do.