How to Close Frozen Programs with Task Manager

If you have problems with a program that is frozen or won't close normally, a way to fix it is to use the Task Manager in Windows.

Task Manager is a nifty thing, and can be used for far more things than just closing a program or process but this article will keep it simple, and focused just around closing a program or helping a frozen up computer.

I assume that you are using Windows Operating System. On the bottom of your screen, you'll find the Taskbar. This is where you see what programs you have open, and is left of the clock. Right click an empty space on the Taskbar and choose "Task Manager" from the menu. Alternatively you can press ctrl+alt+del at the same time as this also opens up Task Manager.

Now you'll hopefully get a new window up, with what might seem like a lot of confusing computer stuff. Don't worry though, as you cannot break or mess up anything that can't be fixed by restarting the computer.

On the tabs it should say "Applications", "Processes", "Services" etc. We'll only need the first two, so click on "Applications".

This shows you which applications are open, so click once on the program you wish to shut down and then click "End Task". If you get any error messages just click OK. This should in most cases solve the problem, but if the program is still not closing go to the second tab "Processes".

Here you'll see all the processes that are running on your computer, and you can monitor anything that runs. If its notepad that won't shut down correctly look for notepad.exe. If you're having problems searching for the program you can click "Image Name" on the top to sort the processes alphabetical. Browse your way down the list until you find the name of the program, and when you found it click it once before clicking "End Process". You can also right click it and choose "End Process" from there.

After you choose to end the process you get a confirmation box asking you if you are sure. Mine says:

"Do you want to end this process? If an open program is associated with this process, it will close and you will lose any unsaved data. If you end a system process, it might result in an unstable system. Are you sure you want to continue?"