Automatically close a specific non-responding program.

briany

I have an old PC game that I'm playing, but it has a problem that when I close the game, the splash screen of the game remains, and kind of freezes the desktop. I have to launch the task manager with ctrl-shift-esc and then sometimes I can't even interact with that to close the game fully. Or I have to run a taskkill command from my phone to a remote control program on my PC.

What I would like is a script or a way to schedule a task such that it detects when this specific game is hanging on closedown, and force closes it, in order to save me the above rigmarole, and also to save it for others in the house playing the game who wouldn't have any concept of how to force close the game.

Any suggestions?

Slippin Jimmy

briany wrote: »

I have an old PC game that I'm playing, but it has a problem that when I close the game, the splash screen of the game remains, and kind of freezes the desktop. I have to launch the task manager with ctrl-shift-esc and then sometimes I can't even interact with that to close the game fully. Or I have to run a taskkill command from my phone to a remote control program on my PC.

What I would like is a script or a way to schedule a task such that it detects when this specific game is hanging on closedown, and force closes it, in order to save me the above rigmarole, and also to save it for others in the house playing the game who wouldn't have any concept of how to force close the game.

Any suggestions?

I hope this is of some use to you. I use it as I have a similar situation to you.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/555619

igCorcaigh

Can you use the name to search for the process and then kill it?

briany

Slippin Jimmy wrote: »

I hope this is of some use to you. I use it as I have a similar situation to you.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/555619

Nice. Thank you.

I'd come up with my own fix in the meantime, which was to schedule the running of a powershell command every 30 seconds upon launch of the problematic program, like this -

get-process | where-object {$_.responding -eq $false -and $_.name -eq "<processname>"} | stop-process

but yours seems a good deal more elegant. Will give it a go later on.

One question, though - how long does it take to close the crashed program? Just, as we all know, any program can occasionally hang for a few moments and then become responsive again. Wouldn't be ideal if it killed every program that hanged for a few seconds.

Slippin Jimmy

It usually closes the programme within 20 to 30 seconds. Let us know how you get on.

briany

Slippin Jimmy wrote: »

It usually closes the programme within 20 to 30 seconds. Let us know how you get on.

Will do. I notice that the help page you linked to is for up to XP SP2. I have Windows 10. Would hope the reg behaviour is the same.

ED E

What happens when you ALT-F4 instead of using the games exit function?

briany

ED E wrote: »

What happens when you ALT-F4 instead of using the games exit function?

Nothing. Anyway, I wanted something that would be automatic.

Don't see AutoEndTasks on my Regedit.

smuggler.ie

briany wrote: »

Nothing. Anyway, I wanted something that would be automatic.

Don't see AutoEndTasks on my Regedit.

Be cautious with that reg tweak. Depending on PC usage it might have inadvertent effects on other programs and how Windows behave on shutdown.
https://www.howtogeek.com/282062/control-how-long-windows-waits-before-killing-apps-at-shutdown/

briany

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Be cautious with that reg tweak. Depending on PC usage it might have inadvertent effects on other programs and how Windows behave on shutdown.
https://www.howtogeek.com/282062/control-how-long-windows-waits-before-killing-apps-at-shutdown/

The reg entry doesn't seem to appear on Windows 10. At least, not on my install.

When I ran the game last night, it exited cleanly, for some reason, so I didn't bother to apply anything.

smuggler.ie

briany wrote: »

The reg entry doesn't seem to appear on Windows 10. At least, not on my install.

When I ran the game last night, it exited cleanly, for some reason, so I didn't bother to apply anything.

Its not there by default.

Read instruction how to create reg key in the article if you choose to try that and how to remove.