How to "End Process Tree" instead of the soft alt f4

Task I am wanting to do.

Pretty simple. I am looking for a way to setup my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with a keyboard shortcut to "End process Tree" of the current application. There are some programs that can be installed to give this funcionality, however that seems like a terrible waste to have a program running and taking up resources to do such a simple thing.

Explanation of why I want this functionality.

Basically I find "alt f4" to be a waste as it rarely works on a program that is frozen and when it does it takes too long, also programs thast are not frozen sometimes seem to disable the ability to do it this way and require the use of their own menu's to exit the program or using task manager. If I "alt ctrl del" and "end process tree" it is quick ,efficient and works every time, except that getting to windows task manager then searching the list of processes negates that efficiency.

I don't see an easy way to do this without third party software. While the concept is simple there is often a wide gulf between concept and reality. This doesn't seem a good solution for your problem. It would be better to find why the software was freezing.

Thanks for your response.

Programs freeze because my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 can't update no matter what I do. I have a legit copy but it has never once installed and been able to get past the first update, even with a new downloaded copy or a freinds copy. always using my serial ofcourse. I have tried getting a new video card and new ram and new harddrive. Nothing works possibly a new MB CPU. However I have been told Microsoft went with a one motherboard only policy.

Kinda beside the point though because as pointed out in first post, it is not just for program freezes, but also any program that doesn't allow alt f4 to exit.

There has to be a way even if it is a keyboard shortcut to a .bat file that "End Process Tree"'s multiple programs from a list, to cover the most used programs in one.

Thanks for that however control panel says Windows is activated. The dvd's I have used are my legit copy and my friends legit copy, and a copy downloaded from the site referred to on one of the official forums I found when trying to fix that problem.

I have already followed the update instructions on the forums. also the instructions that go with the error code I get when trying to update from the official forums. If I remember correctly I had to delete some cached update files from the system drive and try restarting the update process. Nothing works and thats ok I can live with it.

However if someone has a way to setup the "End Process Tree" style of application killing to a small batch file that I can link to a keyboard shortcut, or another method that gives the desired functionality without haveing to run a program in the background all the time just for that purpose. It would be greatly appreciated.

ok thanks anyways.

If anyone else can help would be awesome either with a batch file or any other method that doesn't require installing new software to run in the background.

Code:

@echo off
taskkill /pid <Process ID> /f /t

To find the Process ID of a currently running process, then run Task Manager, and then change View > Select Columns > Show PID



The /f switch will forcibly terminate a process, and the /t switch will terminate all child processes along with the parent process, since you said you wanted to end the process tree.

thankyou BlueRobot

While not the ideal solution as the process id for the current program can't be found without going to the same effort as the original method of using task manager to end the process tree. It did make me look into setting up a keyboard shortcut for a desktop shortcut so I can use your method using imagename instead.

It is still not ideal to close every program on a list, however it is preferable to accessing the task manager every time. Hopefully I can find a way now to get the current process name or id so it can be applied to any program and only if it has focus.