Unable to Terminate Process, Windows Task Manager Alternatives

Today I tried to install the Adobe Flash Plugin for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The basic idea was to download the executable, run it and have Flash installed. The problem was that somehow the whole process got corrupted which had several consequences. The Flash Player installation running in the background was creating new temporary Flash executables in the temporary cache directory. When I tried to terminate the process via Windows Task Manager I received the message that access was denied. This happened with the online installer. I received the message “Unable to Terminate Process The operation could not be completed The operation is not valid for this process”.

I’m not sure what caused the issue, but what I did know was that I had to stop the installer from creating new Flash installer instances on my computer. With Windows Task Manager out of the picture, I had to find a way to terminate the process.

One of the best Windows Task Manager alternatives is Process Explorer from Sysinternals (which have been part of Microsoft for the past years). You can download the latest version of Process Explorer from here.

I started the process manager with standard rights first only to find out that I could not use it this way to terminate the process. After exiting and restarting it with elevated rights (by right-clicking and selecting run as administrator) I was able to terminate the process on the system.

Other programs, like Process Lasso, Kill Process or the recently reviewed Daphne may have also been able to terminate the rogue process.

I have learned two things this morning: First, that Windows Task Manager is not almighty when it comes to terminating processes on Windows, and second that it is definitely better to download and install Adobe Flash Player offline installers.

Did you ever encounter a process that you could not kill? What did you do to resolve it?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: adobe flash, process explorer, sysinternals, windows task manager, windows tips

Control Applications and End Processes with Daphne

Windows Task Manager allows us to monitor processes, services, and running applications and also provides control over these so they can be voluntarily ended if needed. There is a replacement for Task Manager that offers more and takes it to the next level, enabling you to end processes at a predetermined time. This replacement is software called Daphne. With Daphne, you can set applications to run always-on-top, alter priorities of processes and threads, and features an online search for information on unknown processes from a database at drk.com.ar. The features of Daphne don’t stop there. It is an incredible application with which you can include different traps, add items to the kill menu and integrate with the Windows context menu. You can identify and copy the path and name of process properties in detail from a clear view that also highlights processes using more memory than the allotted limit. There are a number of other features besides process management to top it all off.

If this sounds like something you want to try out, you can download Daphne for free from this link:

The setup is typical and the parent folder will be found in Windows\Program Files(x86). You can choose to open the application after setup or use the desktop icon to open it later.

You can view %CPU, PID, Process, Path (where specified), Owner, Priority, Class, Memory occupation, Peaks, Swap, Thread, I/O reads and I/O writes. This is all displayed in the main window and the options panel is at the bottom of the window.

The dropdown menu gives you the different actions that you can apply to specific processes. Select the action you want to execute and then drag the icon to the left of the search box and drop it on the process to which you will apply the action.

Windows Task Manager begins to look very limited in comparison to the functions of Daphne. You can use the right-click context menu to choose a variety of options for actions. An interesting feature to demonstrate as an example is the ability to kill a process at an application or process at a particular time, select the process and right-click and choose “Kill at” from the context menu. You may then set the date and time to kill the application. In this example, Yahoo Messenger is selected to be killed at a specific time. This is useful for stopping this application when you don’t want to use it anymore. It is a good application, but the pop-up messages can get annoying after a certain period of time and it is convenient to have it stop automatically.

Use the Settings button in the bottom pane to customize different options such as startup behavior, setting traps, enable Windows Explorer integration, and advanced settings configuration. Highlight the process or application that you want to set options for and click the Settings button to access these options.

Click the Daphne button to see hidden applications, schedule system shutdown, show installed software, etc.

Daphne is quite versatile and easy to learn. It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows 7, and Vista for 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It certainly offers a level of control that exceeds that of Windows Task Manager alone.

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© Melanie Gross for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: process manager, task-manager, windows software, windows task manager

Microsoft Readies Task Manager For Large Scale Computer Systems

When you look at the performance view of Windows Task Manager on your desktop PC you probably see between two or eight logical processors listed in the interface. On large scale computer systems running Windows 7, the count may be a lot higher. Microsoft showed a screenshot of the performance tab of Windows Task Manager with 160 logical processors.

The issues with the old task manager was that it was difficulty to compare the cells in the cpu usage history with each other. Microsoft has identified three core limitations with regards to the cpu charts in the Windows 7 task manager.

First the already mentioned lack of effective real-time cpu usage comparisons. Then that the graphs were reduced in size the more cpu processors were displayed in the performance chart, and finally that it was almost impossible to identify a corresponding processor ID.

Microsoft has made significant modifications to the Task Manager performance tab under Windows 8. The new features have been implemented in a development version of the operating system that has been produced after the release of the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

When users open the performance tab in the Windows 8 Task Manager, they will notice that Microsoft has integrated a heatmap into the display.

Microsoft has done away with the graphs and replaced the information with percentage values showing the cpu load.

In addition, hovering over any processor ID on the map displays the logical processor ID in a tooltip right in the task manager. The Task Manager scales well even to large data sets or small windows. A scrollbar is displayed in the latter case to make enough room for displaying up to 640 logical processors.

The heat map is an interesting idea for large scale systems. It in combination with the direct display of processor loads and individual process identifications a great upcoming enhancements for server administrators.

It is however not clear why Microsoft in the same news post mentioned that users could set the cpu affinity of each process in Windows individually, as it is a feature that is has been available for a while. Unless of course the settings are saved over sessions.

You can read the new post over at the Building Windows 8 blog.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: cpu core affinity, performance, task-manager, windows 8, windows task manager

Windows 8 Task Manager, A Step In The Right Direction?

If you have followed the buzz surrounding Microsoft’s upcoming operating system Windows 8 you may have noticed that the Redmond company has redesigned the Windows Task Manager. When you first open it it only displays programs that have been started by the user. While that’s probably ok for the majority of users, it is nothing that experienced users would want to work with.

A click on More Details in the Task Manager expands the display to make it look more like the Task Manager known from previous Windows versions.

When you look closer though you will notice that there are fundamental differences that may make the Task Manager unusable for system administrators and tech savvy users. Lets take a look at the Task Manager in Windows 8:

And now as a comparison the Task Manager in Windows 7:

Probably the first thing that you will notice is that the Windows 8 Task Manager is dividing processes into groups like Applications, Background Processes or Windows Processes. This may provide a better overview of tasks, but some users may criticize that it is now more difficulty to look at all tasks as they are not sorted alphabetically anymore. You can change the display with a right-click on the status bar and a click on “Group by Type” there.

If you look closer, you will notice that Windows 8 displays service and application names instead of the process executable. Microsoft has removed the option to add or remove columns from the View menu. You now need to right-click on a column in the Task Manager to see the selection of available information that you can display in the window. Among the options is the process name which adds the file executable to the interface again.

Good thing is that Windows will remember the modifications that you have made to the Task Manager. It will launch the task manager in detailed view directly and with the layout changes that you have made in a previous session.

I personally dislike the way the new Task Manager is delivered to the user. The default state is absolutely useless and the detailed view only becomes a working solution once you make the modifications mentioned above. Once you have modified it it resembles the old task manager. Some users on the other hand may feel the need to switch to a task manager replacement like Process Explorer instead.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: process explorer, task-manager, windows 8, windows task manager