Automatically Kill Hung Applications

Windows can really sometimes annoy the hell out of me. Starting a new software that was recently installed and seeing it hang after the start with delayed reactions from the system can be really painful. Hitting CTRL + ALT + DEL and waiting minutes before the dialog pops up is not the number one solution to get rid of a process that is stuck in nirvana.

One way to get rid of those processes immediately or after a set time is to edit your registry and change one or two values there. I had the chance to test this on Windows XP only but it could be similar for other operating systems such as Windows 2000.

Open your registry and navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and change the value from the key ‘AutoEndTask’ to 1. If you want to set a time to wait until the kill process is executed you need to change the value of the key ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’ to a value in milliseconds which means 1000 would be 1 second.

via: Technospot

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Saturday August 25, 2007 -
Tags:application not reacting, hung application, kill process, windows tips, windows-xp

Responses so far:

1. Roman ShaRP says:

   August 25, 2007 at 10:34 am

   Do you about Process Lasso or Process Tamer?

   Those are applications for “automatic priority management”. Both are about lowing priority of processes, consuming too many CPU time {and in such way allow to kill troubled app without much waiting}.

   Process Lasso in addition
   - can automatically raise priority for chosen process and make it work faster or not interruptable by other
   - can boost foreground process priority
   - has nice CPU usage or system responsiveness indicator
   - can show memory usage and so on

   So, when I start using Process Lasso, I throw out famous Process Explorer – not only because of problems I had with it, but because Process Lasso can replace it and do more for me {but looks not so good, heh :) }.

   And both are free. I do not tets Process Tamer, because Lasso work fine.

   Reply
2. Joe says:

   August 25, 2007 at 10:54 am

   Martin, I’m not sure I understand this.
   Are the two keys connected and dependent on one another? In other words, do I need to set autoendtask to 1 in order to set the delay or should it be set to 0 and only then I will get the delay that I set in the other key?

   Also, what does it mean “the process is terminated instantly”? How does the system know when a process is hung?

   Thanks’
   Joe

   Reply
3. Kip says:

   August 26, 2007 at 9:01 am

   I’ve across this “tip” a dozen times. Don’t rehash old stuff.

   Reply
4. Alter Falter! says:

   August 27, 2007 at 9:53 pm

   Hmm, too bad: My AutoEndTasks is already set to 1…?

   Reply