We currently have a scheduled task on a server, it runs a bat file which copies files from one machine to another. The file looks like:
#echo off
net use t: \\xxxxx\copy password /user:xxx\xyz /persistent:yes
move t:\*.txt C:\testfiles
net use t: /delete
taskkill /f /fi "USERNAME eq xyz" /im conhost.exe
exit
When the task runs I noticed in task manager cmd.exe and conhost.ext are started, I wanted to stop them once the task is done. Killing the conhost.ext manually seems to kill them both. The above bat file runs fine but the conhost.exe is not killed, I wasn't sure if it can kill itself? As running that line in another bat file works. As currently once the task is done those two are still showing up in task manager.
You can try to get the cmd.exe own process so you'll kill only the current instance of cmd.exe . You can use for example getCmdPID.bat:
#echo off
call getCmdPid.bat
taskkill /pid %errorlevel%
pause
conhost.exe is executed automatically for each console application and exits automatically when the application exits, you don't have to kill it explicitly. So just kill cmd.exe.
I'm playing an old game that conflicts with the Windows Graphical Shell for Windows 7 and doesn't allow it to display properly so I simply go into Task Manager (TM) and close explorer.exe and the game displays fine but in order for me to enable explorer.exe I need to go into TM and start a new task for it to come back. I was wonder if there was a way to write a .Bat file that would kill explorer.exe launch my game and once the game closes it would simply run the task for me instead of manually needing to turn it back on.
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
start CNC95Launcher.exe
this is what i have so far
The start causes windows to launch your program asynchronously - that is, it will start it, then continue with the next instruction without waiting for your app to close.
Try this:
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
start /wait CNC95Launcher.exe
start explorer.exe
You probably don't actually need the start for explorer, because it's that kind program.
I use this (on window 7):
taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
*.exe
Start explorer.exe
replace * with the exe name that launches the actual game not a pre launch menu and save as .bat in the same folder directory.
It works for Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and AoE which can suffer weird colour issues if explorer runs.
I need to start an exe from a cmd (wrap the exe so I can supply some command-line options). The problem is that just calling the exe from the cmd does not make the wrapping completely transparent: if the .exe hangs, killing the cmd won't kill the exe. I need it to kill the exe too. Can I do that in plain Windows (from XP up), without adding any dependencies?
In Bash you have exec which replaces the shell process with the supplied command. This is handy for writing wrapper scripts, making the wrapping process completely transparent. I know Windows lacks execve() to make this possible, but I'm only interested in the parent-killing-its-children part.
CLARIFICATION: I'm not looking for ways to kill the exe, I am looking for ways to wrap (start) the exe so that killing it using standard ways (eg. Ctrl+C or from task manager) works. For instance, I could create a lnk file (Windows shortcut) and get this behavior, but I want to do it from a script (for one, lnks only work with absolute paths, I can't deploy that).
Thanks.
Taskkill can be used to match certain criteria. By entering Taskkill/? you get the manual and can read up on how to filter using common properties. I assume that all your children share a common portion in their name. You could use taskkill to math the name with wildcards and close all children that matched that name.
EDIT (taken from the comments section):
As IInspectable points out you can kill all child processes using the /T flag.
EDIT starting from a batch you could use START (reference here) to launch the exe parallel to the batch and have your abort in the batch.
Edit i wrote and tested this mini example:
#echo off
echo starting %1
start %1
echo Any key to kill execution
pause >> NUL
taskkill /IM %1 /t
taskkill /F /IM iexplore.exe
/F to force kill.
Which can kill subprocesses
e.g. https://www.windows-commandline.com/taskkill-kill-process/
I am trying to end all processes except cmd.exe, so that the script can remove files without any processes interfering. I have tried using
taskkill /f /fi "IMAGENAME ne cmd.exe"
but this doesn't work. As expected it kills all processes but it still ends up killing cmd.exe. Is this because it is killing a process that keeps windows open? What am I doing wrong?
End all processes except for these:
spoolsv.exe
lsass.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
winlogon.exe
svchost.exe
services.exe
conhost.exe
cmd.exe
Nothing as far as I can see - but if your goal is indeed to prevent unauthorised use, why not simply execute shutdown ? - see shutdown /? from the prompt for options.
When I start up an Experimental instance of VS from VS for debugging and stop debugging (sometimes directly from the parent VS), a zombile devenv.exe process remains running which I am unable to kill. It holds on to many of my dlls.
As I am logged onto this 64bit Win7 machine as Administrator, I would expect to be able to kill any process I wish to.
I tried (from Administrator command prompt):
End Task from Task Manager.
TASKKILL /F /IM devenv.exe
PSKILL devenv.exe
None return any error and TASKKILL and PSKILL returned success messages of terminating/killing the process. But devenv.exe still runs, it is not re-spawned as the PID remains constant. It goes away only on restart of the system which is not a great solution.
Note. LockHunter shows devenv has got a lock on itself. And it cannot unlock it.
The above screenshot is the output of Process Monitor showing devenv to be in some kind of 'Process Profiling' loop (Right click on it and click open image in new tab to see it properly).
Any ideas how to kill such a process on Windows?
you must kill child process too if any spawned to kill successfully your process
taskkill /IM "process_name" /T /F
/T = kills child process
/F = forceful termination of your process
The taskkill and powershell (kill) methods didn't work for me; it still said "Access Denied".
I had better luck with this:
wmic process where "name='myprocessname.exe'" delete
Reboot is the only solution that worked for me (so far).
The ever excellent Mark Russonovich has a good explanation for unkillable processes.
To summarise, it's quite possible it is due to unprocessed I/O requests that hasn't been handled properly (by a device driver your program has possibly accessed)
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-blog-archive/unkillable-processes/ba-p/723389
Just had the same issue on Windows Server 2008 R2 and nothing helped, not taskmanager or taskkill. But, windows powershell run as administrator worked with "kill -id pid"
I know it's late but taskkill /im devenv.exe /t /f should work. the /t kills child processes too.
In my case, after several days of fighting with this problem (it was happening to VirtualBox and µTorrent processes), I discovered it was caused by a network driver issue, provoked by Windows Update patch KB4338818 (Windows 7 x64). After uninstalling that patch everything went back to normal. I just thought it could be useful for others.
I could solve my issue rearding this problem by killing explorer.exe which in turn was addicted to the process I wanted to kill. I guess this may also happen if processes open interfaces via hook which may be locked.
Native tskill <pid> (or tskill.exe <pid> ) worked for me on Windows 10 where no other native answer did.
In my case, I had some chrome.exe processes for which task manager's 'End Task' was working, but neither taskkill /F /T /PID <pid> nor powershell's kill -id <pid> worked (even with both shells run as admin).
This is very strange as taskkill is purported to be a better-api-and-does-more version of tskill.
In my case to kill all instances of a certain task I used FOR /F "usebackq tokens=2 skip=2" %i IN (`TASKLIST /FI "IMAGENAME eq name_of_task.exe"`) DO tskill %i
I've seen this a few times and my only solution was a re-boot.
You could try using PowerShell:
Get-Process devenv | kill
But if the other methods failed, this probably will too. :-(
I am going to suggest something here because I recently faced the same issue and I tried every possible thing in the answers but nothing worked. I was getting errors like
ERROR: The process with PID 23908 could not be terminated.
Reason: There is no running instance of the task.
using command prompt. Power shell wasn't helpful either. it would simply execute the commands and no response with process still running.
Until I decided to delete the associated '.exe' file. Since the file was active, windows would not allow the deletion, but in that warning window it gave me the name of the process which was holding up the task I wanted to kill.
I was able to kill the original task and thus the buggy process.
It is definitely worth a try if none of the solutions works out.
I was getting the following results with taskkill
>taskkill /im "MyApp.exe" /t /f
ERROR: The process with PID 32040 (child process of PID 54176) could not be terminated.
Reason: There is no running instance of the task.
>taskkill /pid 54176 /t /f
ERROR: The process "54176" not found.
What worked for me was sysinternal's pskill
>pskill.exe -t 32040
PsKill v1.15 - Terminates processes on local or remote systems
Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
Process 32040 killed.
You can get pskill from the sysinternal's live site
If taskkill /F /T /PID <pid> does not work.
Try opening your terminal elevated using Run as Administrator.
Search cmd in your windows menu, and right click Run as Administrator,
then run the command again. This worked for me.
Some of the Exe files Dependents on Some services,
So you need find the respective service and stop first.
The same problem happened to me in VirtualBox with respect to Java processes.
In my case, it was due to a bug in Windows Update patch KB4338818 (Windows 7 x64).
I solved it by doing the following:
Uninstall Windows Update patch KB4338818
Install Windows Update patch KB4338821
Running as an admin works for me:
1.search cmd in windows
2.right click on cmd select as "Run as administrator"
3.netstat -ano | findstr :8080
4.taskkill/pid (your number) /F
For me, the way it worked is I have to kill the parent process. Figure the parent process out and kill it
taskkill /IM "parent_process_name.exe" /T /F
In my case none of the solutions here worked. I eventually found that the program in question was frozen trying to poll USB audio interfaces. So I unplugged a USB DAC I had connected, and to my surprise the application quit instantly. Francis' answer mentions that it could be a result of "unprocessed I/O requests that hasn't been handled properly (by a device driver your program has possibly accessed)", which might explain why this fixed it.
I suppose it really depends on what the program was doing when it froze, but if none of the other solutions are working, try disconnecting all USB devices to see if one of them could be the cause.
taskkill /f /im "process.exe"
running cmd or .bat file as administrator worked for me
I have the Problem with debugged processes with gdb in Code::Blocks.
As soon it is hanging while accidentally stepping into instructions out of scope of your sources (as libs without sources or system functions) you cannot quit the debugging neither from Code::Blocks nor from Task-Manager.
I think it is an error in the implementation of gdb in Code::Blocks, but could also be in gdb ;)
My Solution:
taskkill /F /IM process.exe /T
This shows the PID of the parent process. Now kill the parent:
taskkill /PID yyyy
Both are gone.
Done.
NirSoft's NirCmd did the job for me:
nircmd killprocess "process name.exe"
killprocess man page is here.
I had the exact same issue, found this fix on another site:
powershell.exe "Get-Process processname| Stop-Process"
it worked for me and I was in the same boat where I had to restart, the /T would not work.
If you download the free sysinternals suite, it has a pskill.exe application which works well for these types of tasks: pskill.exe "process_name"
It works on these processes even without using its -t option.
I did the following, on an elevated powershell:
PS C:\Windows\system32> wmic.exe /interactive:off process where "name like `'java%'`" call terminate
command Output:
Executing (\\SRV\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_Process.Handle="3064")->terminate()
Method execution successful.
Out Parameters:
instance of __PARAMETERS
{ReturnValue = 0; };
I got some syntax information on : https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/871561-wmic-error-like-invalid-alias-verb
As Francis mentioned some process can not be terminated because of
"unprocessed I/O requests"
In my experience i was dealing with buggy graphic driver that would cause my game to crash and not be able to close it, as last resort i disabled the graphic driver and the process finally went away.
If your application is waiting for a resource from driver like wifi or graphic try disabling them in device manager, you need to dig a little deep to see where they hanged.
This is of course not recommended but sometimes you have nothing to lose anymore.
I had the same problem and as many others here have said none of the normal Kill commands worked. My problem file was an executable that was being run from a network share by a user on a Remote Desktop Server. With multiple shared users not an easy thing to restart in during a work day. Even when the user logged off the exe was still listed in Task Manager. I sent to the server where the folder was shared and from Computer Management -> Sessions found the user with the session still open from that RDP server even though he was logged off. Right Click -> Close Session and the file lock was released.
Beats me why I couldn't end the taks. The error message I was originally getting when I try and delete the file was "The action can't be completed because the file is open in System"
Hope this helps someone else.
while taskkill didn't work
taskkill /f /t /pid 14492
ERROR: The process with PID 14492 (child process of PID 7992) could not be terminated.
Reason: There is no running instance of the task.
the simpler tskill has worked fine for me
tskill 14492
I faced the same issue where I started a node app in port 3000 and it didn't close correctly and the process kept running even after restart.
None of the taskkill or powershell commands running in Administrator mode worked for me.
I used MS Process Expoler > Properties > Image > Current directory (which was supposed to be the my project directory).
Finally, I had to reboot in SafeMode and rename the project folder and restart. The Node processes which were consuming port 3000 killed itself.
For killing PID Tasks running in windows:
TASKKILL /PID "Taskname" /F
using wmic:
show all running process where name of process is cmd.exe
wmic process where name="cmd.exe" GET ProcessId, CommandLine,CreationClassName
then terminate the specific instance of process by processId (PID)
WMIC PROCESS WHERE "ProcessID=13800" CALL TERMINATE
Run CMD as Admin will fix the problem