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Killing a dormant Windows Process

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  • 18-05-2010 8:58am
    #1
    Tobias Greeshman
    Registered Users Posts: 2,082 ✭✭✭


    Hi,

    I've a problem with a dormant process (a dos/cmd process) on my Windows box, it's dormant in so far as neither ProcessExplorer (SysInternals) nor Task Manager have any associated info on it whether a name or pid.

    The process was originally created from Visual Studio 2005, during a debugging session, however closing the instance of Visual Studio left the process there.

    The process will also stop a reboot/shutdown as Windows seems unable to kill it, forcing a hard reboot.

    I've also tried killing the Explorer process and starting it again, but that didn't resolve it.

    Anyone any idea on how to kill the window?


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    #2
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,965 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    pslist should list it - run as administrator to be sure

    and then pskill to nuke it

    have you ticked the box to show processes from all users in taskmgr etc. and you are running with admin rights


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    #3
    Tobias Greeshman
    Registered Users Posts: 2,082 ✭✭✭Tobias Greeshman


    I have cygwin and mks toolkit installed, I've tried all variations of ps/pskill (including taskkill for windows) and they don't show any record of this process. I even got ProcessExplorer to show any hidden handles/DLL's along with all processes and I still can't get any info on the process.

    It's like the cmd process is buggy and somehow left the window there, but all data pertaining to the process has being deleted.


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    #4
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,965 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    ntvdm ?

    did you add the columns in process explorer to show the command line - might give you clues


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    #5
    Tobias Greeshman
    Registered Users Posts: 2,082 ✭✭✭Tobias Greeshman


    This is a full WIN32 32-bit process so it shouldn't be using ntvdm, I think that's just for emulating 16-bit DOS processes.

    It's definitely down to Visual Studio 2005 being the culprit, I've reproduced it multiple times now. It looks like some sort of bug in the Debugger, when I cancel a debugging session (with CTRL+F5) it seems that the debugged process window stays up and Visual Studio has destroyed all record of it (I can't see anything in Process Explorer/task manager - No matter what columns/options I show).

    Thanks for your help.


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    #6
    Tobias Greeshman
    Registered Users Posts: 2,082 ✭✭✭Tobias Greeshman


    Solved this, it appears it was down to a buggy Windows Update for a security fix (KB978037).

    Here's a link to the thread on MSDN and another from one of the MSDN Blogs describing it if anyone's interested.


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