Windows XP [Electronic resources] : Visual Quickstart Guide, Second Edition نسخه متنی

Killing Unresponsive Programs

Programs that crash/freeze/lock up/hang are said to be "not responding" in Microsoft vernacular; you can move the pointer within the program's window, but the program itself won't respond to clicks or keystrokes. If you're coming from Windows 9

x, you'll be glad to hear that an unresponsive program rarely forces you to restart your computer. Instead, use Task Manager (inherited from Windows 2000) to send the frozen program to its grave.

Tip

Before you kill a program, make sure that it's really not responding. Wait a minute or two; Windows may be struggling to allocate extra memory. If you're running a Visual Basic macro in Word or Excel, the program may appear frozen while VB has control. Global reformatting or a find-and-replace operation can keep a word processor hypnotized for minutes. An open dialog box may prevent you from doing anything else in the program; look for one hiding behind another window.

Desperate Measures

If killing an unresponsive program as described doesn't work, you still have these options, in order of preference:

Logging On and Logging Off" in Chapter 1).

To kill an unresponsive program:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete or Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager.

or

Right-click an empty area of the taskbar; then choose Task Manager.

2. On the Applications tab, select the name of the unresponsive task (Figure 6.14 ).

3. Click End Task.

4. In the End Program dialog box, click End Now (Figure 6.15 ).

Using the Free Utility Programs" later in this chapter.