In this post, we will see how to force close a program, even when the program won’t close with Task Manager in Windows 11/10. To close unresponsive tasks or programs, you can also use taskkill.exe, keyboard shortcut, a free tool, or the End tree command.
How to force close a Program without Task Manager in Windows 11
If you open the Task Manager, right-click on the process and select End task, the process should close. If it does not, go to the Details tab, right-click on the process and select End process tree. Maybe this will help. If the Task Manager is still not closing the program, then these suggestions will help you:
- Use Alt+F4 keyboard shortcut
- Use Taskkill
- Kill a Not Responding process using a Shortcut
- Terminate ALL open applications instantly.
Force close a Program which Task Manager cannot terminate
1] Use Alt+F4 keyboard shortcut
Click on the application you want to close and then press the Alt+F4 keys together and leave them after the application closes.
Read: How to Terminate Microsoft Store Apps.
2] Use Taskkill
Open the Command Prompt as Administrator and run the Tasklist command; it will show you a list of all the running processes.
To view the processes, type Taskview and hit Enter.
To kill any particular process, use the Taskkill command. For example, to kill Chrome, run the command as:
Taskkill /IM chrome.exe /F
Where /F is used to kill the process forcefully. You can also kill any particular process by using its ID; the tasklist command displays the process ID’s as well. You can see the PID column in the screenshot. To kill any process using its ID, run the command as:
Taskkill /PID 2704 /F
Now to kill multiple processes simultaneously, run the above command with the PIDs of all the processes, followed by spaces
Taskkill /PID 2704 5472 4344 /F
Related: Unable to terminate process, Access is denied, The operation could not be completed
3] Kill a Not Responding process using a Shortcut
This post will help you if you want to kill a Not Responding process by creating a Shortcut.
Related: How to Enable or Disable AutoEndTasks in Windows
4] Terminate ALL open applications instantly
See this if you want to terminate or Kill ALL running processes or open applications instantly
Hope this helps.
Task Manager End Task not working in Windows 11
If Task Manager’s End Task isn’t working in Windows 11, run System File Checker and update your Windows OS and the device drivers. Next, try running Task Manager as Administrator and see if that helps. If the process still won’t close, use Command Prompt with taskkill /f /im name.exe to force it to terminate. If nothing helps, you may have to consider resetting Windows.
These posts may also interest you:
- Free tools to forcefully terminate a full-screen application or game
- How to force quit a full-screen always-on-top Program or Game.
I hope this helps.
How do I force quit a program that won’t close?
To force quit a program that won’t close in Windows, press Alt + F4. Hold down the ‘Alt’ key and tap ‘F4’ to quickly close the unresponsive application. If the program remains stuck, use Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc, selecting the application, and clicking “End Task.”
How to force close a program if Alt+F4 doesn’t work?
If Alt+F4 doesn’t work to close a program, you can force quit it using the Command Prompt. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager, note the program’s name, then open Command Prompt and type taskkill /im program.exe /f and press Enter. Remember to replace “program.exe” with the actual program file executable name.
