Killing a process which won't die?

[bgowland]

Has anybody got a favourite tool to kill processes (WinXP) when they won't go away when trying with Task Manager?

I've tried a command-line tool simply called 'Process' from beyondlogic, I've tried the PsKill utility from PsTools and now I'm getting to the point where this thing probably isn't going to go unless I reboot.

Guess what it is...the Hauppauge WinTV2000 exe. Yick. I knew I shouldn't have started it in the first place. :mad:

Cheers,
Brian

[Kevl]

I've cured this in the past by logging off and then logging back on. This can fix broken codecs when I can't be bothered to reboot etc.

Not sure if it would solve your problem as I guess you have a good reason for not just rebooting as logging off might also terminate whatever it is you are trying to keep alive.

Kev

[bgowland]

Not sure if it would solve your problem as I guess you have a good reason for not just rebooting as logging off might also terminate whatever it is you are trying to keep alive.

Thanks Kev.

Yes, various reasons for not wanting to reboot - the main one being that the machine is 15 miles away at the end of a VPN connection and has a history of not wanting to restart when using a remote reboot option.

I just rebooted it as a last resort and it has hung on restart (true to form) - I can ping it but can't connect on a remote connection. Oh well, they can fix it in the morning it's not a big deal - I guess I'll be relaxing for the rest of the night instead of working.

Cheers,
Brian

[ACTCMS]

Sorry Brian... couldn't resist...

Yes, various reasons for not wanting to reboot - the main one being that the machine is 15 miles away at the end of a VPN connection and has a history of not wanting to restart when using a remote reboot option.

All my machines are just upstairs in the loft... :p

I guess I'll be relaxing for the rest of the night instead of working.

Have a beer...

[bgowland]

All my machines are just upstairs in the loft...

Well all of mine are here in my office at home (plus one in the living room). I don't own the one that has been hassling me tonight. I've suddenly remebered what it was like in my last permanent job - net sysadmin, 40 W2K/W2K3 servers 10 miles away.

Thinks..."Hmmm, do I really want to restart the primary mail server at 3am in the morning. Yeah, I need to so the patches will take effect." [30 minutes later] "Oops it doesn't seem to have come up again" :eek:

Have a beer...

My first thought - just poured one and off to watch some TV.

Cheers,
Brian

[robplatt]

try procxp from sysinternals (now m$). ive had it kill processes that are stuck.

[bgowland]

try procxp from sysinternals (now m$). ive had it kill processes that are stuck.

Thanks - I'll take a look at it. I basically gave up when the first few returns on Google didn't work. I'm fairly convinced the machine is screwy anyway - when Notepad hangs on close, you know something underlying isn't quite right.

Cheers,
Brian

[pastro]

Well all of mine are here in my office at home (plus one in the living room). I don't own the one that has been hassling me tonight. I've suddenly remebered what it was like in my last permanent job - net sysadmin, 40 W2K/W2K3 servers 10 miles away.

Thinks..."Hmmm, do I really want to restart the primary mail server at 3am in the morning. Yeah, I need to so the patches will take effect." [30 minutes later] "Oops it doesn't seem to have come up again" :eek:

My first thought - just poured one and off to watch some TV.

Cheers,
Brian

Reminds me of one of the guys at work building a circut that after x numbers of rings on the phone, it rebooted his computer.
Very effective for remote site reboots.

[Nomad101]

XP also has a command line utility called taskkill.exe which I've successfully used to kill task that Taskmanager won't.

In Taskmanager click "View, Select Columns" and check the PID box so it shows the process ID then use:

taskkill.exe /PID {pid} /F

[HarryH3]

Yes, various reasons for not wanting to reboot - the main one being that the machine is 15 miles away at the end of a VPN connection and has a history of not wanting to restart when using a remote reboot option.

I've used something like this in the past with great success.

http://www.wti.com/nps.htm

Being able to remotely cycle the mains can be very useful.