DJ Riff on 23/6/2013 at 19:17
Ok, I feel like a noob here. Say I have a full-screen application (a game or a video player) which is not responding. When I start Task Manager via Ctrl+Shift+Esc or Ctrl+Alt+Del stop screen, it appears obscured by the application. On WinXP it was simple — Win+R, type "cmd", hit Enter, Alt+Enter — and I have a fullscreen command prompt where I can use tasklist and taskkill commands freely. Win7 does not support full-screen command prompt, so I'm at a loss. I tried to run tasklist from the remote machine, but it doesn't accept the admin password. The only solution I thought out so far is to script a taskkill command in a cmd file for all full-screen executable names that are installed on the computer and start it with the keyboard shortcut. Any better ideas?
bikerdude on 23/6/2013 at 22:10
Alt+F4 is the standard windows way of closing an app from the desktop, but from task manager and once the app is selected its ctrl-alt-end.
DJ Riff on 24/6/2013 at 08:36
Quote Posted by bikerdude
Alt+F4 is the standard windows way of closing an app from the desktop, but from task manager and once the app is selected its ctrl-alt-end.
The problem is that the program is not responding so Alt+F4 doesn't work and I can't see Task manager window to select the app because the screen is covered with the frosen program's overlay.
zombe on 24/6/2013 at 13:06
I think it is impossible (well, it's Windows - it is not supposed to be usable. /vile rant). Which is why i always open the task manager on my second display in advance whenever i use any of the problematic fullscreen apps (as opening it afterwards might spawn it on the dead screen).
edit: in case one does not have a second monitor then i guess the multi-screen functionality that most display drivers offer as a separate app might work too ... never used any with W7 myself.
DiMarzio on 25/6/2013 at 19:48
Do you open taskmanager by Ctrl+Alt+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc? When I have similar problem I always use the former one as it goes to the lock-up screen which seems to always (at least I can't remember any exceptions) open no matter how pensive Win7 is.
zombe on 26/6/2013 at 22:01
Quote Posted by DiMarzio
Do you open taskmanager ...
It does not matter how one opens the task manager when the task manager is inaccessibly behind the window of the program that is to be killed.
Al_B on 26/6/2013 at 22:18
Do you know in advance which program is likely to crash? If you do then it should be possible to bind a taskkill script to a hot key or similar. If there's a way to get the current full screen application image name then it might be possible to do it automatically. I don't know if such a utility already exists but it does remind me of an old Linux joystick driver that allowed you to reboot the system pressing joystick buttons if Linux had frozen up and would not respond otherwise.
bikerdude on 27/6/2013 at 11:26
Quote Posted by Al_B
Do you know in advance which program is likely to crash? If you do then it should be possible to bind a taskkill script to a hot key or similar.
And now Al has reminded me of something else you can do in windows. And that is download a windows tweaker app and look for the time to autokill a crashed app setting, Ive set mine to 5 seconds..
sNeaksieGarrett on 26/7/2013 at 15:17
Quote Posted by DiMarzio
Do you open taskmanager by Ctrl+Alt+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc? When I have similar problem I always use the former one as it goes to the lock-up screen which seems to always (at least I can't remember any exceptions) open no matter how pensive Win7 is.
The ctrl alt del method has helped me get out of the fullscreen application, but I've seen a problem where the application has a black window obscuring part of the desktop and the task manager (or to be more accurate in my case, Process Explorer) is behind it.:erg: However, if you can get out of fullscreen then you can log out of windows and log back in.
@bikerdude: That's interesting. Sounds like a good solution, but do you have a particular app in mind?
Apiai on 26/7/2013 at 18:02
You just have to learn the key shortcuts so that you'll be able to kill the program even if you don't see the taskmanager window :
- ctrl+alt+sup
- shift+tab, left (to switch to the app tab)
- tab, first letter of the program to kill
- alt+i to kill the app (this shortcut depends to your windows langage)
I only know a french program named Clavier+ that allows you to script any keys combination.
