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Kill All Not Responding Tasks in Windows 10

In Windows 10, you can kill all not responding tasks at once. There is a special command which will allow you to do this. In this article, we will see how it can be done. Also, we'll create a shortcut to close hung tasks quickly.

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Kill Non Responding Tasks Shortcut IconIn Windows 10 and in previous Windows versions, there is a taskkill console command which allows you to terminate a process or a group of processes. It supports a number of command line arguments which can be used to end some application.

For example, you can kill the explorer.exe process in order to restart it with the following command:

taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe /f

The /IM switch specifies the image name of the process to be terminated. It also supports wildcard '*' to specify all tasks and a part of the image name.
The switch /F will forcefully terminate the process(es).

The example above gives you an idea on how the taskkill.exe tool can be used. Now, let's see how to kill all not responding tasks.

To kill all not responding tasks in Windows 10, use the following syntax for taskkill.exe:

taskkill.exe /F /FI "status eq NOT RESPONDING"

A new switch, /FI, applies a special filter to select a set of tasks. It also supports wildcard "*", for example: imagename eq acme*.
The status filter in the example above tells the taskill command to find all not responding tasks. The /F switch specifies that all tasks which are hung should be terminated.

The supported filters are as follows:

Filter NameValid OperatorsValid Value(s)
STATUSeq, neRUNNING | NOT RESPONDING | UNKNOWN
IMAGENAMEeq, neImage name
PIDeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, lePID value
SESSIONeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, leSession number.
CPUTIMEeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, leCPU time in the format of hh:mm:ss.
hh - hours,mm - minutes,
ss - seconds
MEMUSAGEeq, ne, gt, lt, ge, leMemory usage in KB
USERNAMEeq, neUser name in [domain\]user format
MODULESeq, neDLL name
SERVICESeq, neService name
WINDOWTITLEeq, neWindow title

To save your time, you can create a shortcut to terminate tasks quickly.

Create a shortcut to kill all not responding tasks in Windows 10

Right-click the empty space on your Desktop and select New - Shortcut.
In the shortcut's target, specify the following command:

taskkill.exe /F /FI "status eq NOT RESPONDING"

See the screenshot:New Shortcut

Name the shortcut as you wish and set the desired icon.Kill Non Responding Tasks ShortcutKill Non Responding Tasks Shortcut Icon

Now you can right-click it and pin it to the taskbar for faster access.Pin Shortcut To TaskbarShortcut Pinned To Taskbar

You can also assign a global keyboard hotkey to the file shortcut you created, so you will be able to close all not responding tasks by pressing that keyboard shortcut. Refer to the following article for step-by-step instructions:

Assign global hotkeys to launch any app in Windows 10

Alternatively, you can integrate the ability to kill not responding tasks with the context menu of the Desktop. Here is how.

Add Kill All Not Responding Tasks Context Menu in Windows 10

To add kill all not responding tasks context menu in Windows 10, you need to apply the following Registry tweak:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\KillNotResponding]
"icon"="taskmgr.exe,-30651"
"MUIverb"="Kill not responding tasks"
"Position"="Top"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\KillNotResponding\command]
@="cmd.exe /K taskkill.exe /F /FI \"status eq NOT RESPONDING\""

Paste the text above inside Notepad.

Tweak Contents

Then press Ctrl + S or execute the File - Save item from the File menu. This will open the Save dialog. There, type or copy-paste the name "Kill.reg" including quotes.Kill Not Responding Save Tweak

Double quotes are important to ensure that the file will get the "*.reg" extension and not *.reg.txt. You can save the file to any desired location, for example, you can put it in your Desktop folder.

Double click the file you created, confirm the import operation and you are done!

To save your time, I made ready-to-use Registry files. You can download them here:

Download Registry Files

The undo tweak is included.

You can save your time and use Winaero Tweaker instead. It comes with the following feature:

Winaero Tweaker Kill Not Responding

You can download it here: Download Winaero Tweaker.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

8 thoughts on “Kill All Not Responding Tasks in Windows 10”

  1. I see you can exit not responding tasks with
    taskkill.exe /F /FI “status eq NOT RESPONDING”

    is there a way to kill ass SUSPENDED tasks at once.
    taskkill.exe /F /FI “status eq NOT SUSPENDED”

    Windows 10 has alot of “SUSPENDED” Tasks in task manager with the latest update.
    I want to close they but they reopen. Is there a way to close them all at the same time.

  2. At present, I am very appreciative for this tool. Thank you!

    Without it, my laptop will not go into Hibernate mode, all of a sudden, and instead just hangs, draining power with no option but to force shutdown via the power button. This destroys the Hibernated state, of course, and the efficiencies therein of using it.

    What would make me hyper-appreciative is if there was a way to automatically run this during Shut down / Hibernate. There undoubtedly is something in Windows that is the opposite to the Start-Up folder. As the idea may not be indexed well online, if anybody knows how to enable this, would be greatly … whoops … *hyper*-appreciated! :)

  3. I have small improvements to this script
    + Now we can see names of killed processes.
    + Some processes cannot be killed without elevating permissions now it will ask but only if it is required.
    + Auto close window(s) after 4sec if it is sucessful.

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\shell\KillNotResponding\Command]
    @=”cmd.exe /K tasklist.exe /FI \”STATUS eq NOT RESPONDING\” & taskkill.exe /F /FI \”STATUS eq NOT RESPONDING\” && timeout /T 4 && exit || @echo.———————————&echo.Trying with elevated permissions && powershell Start-Process -wait \”cmd.exe\” -verb runAs -ArgumentList \”‘/C taskkill /F /FI \\\”STATUS eq NOT RESPONDING\\\” & timeout /T 4\”‘ && exit”

      1. Of course it works but for some strange reason this web page changing “quotation marks” “apostrophe” to some different one maybe some bad formatting ANSI vs UTF…
        So copy/paste and then replace “quotation marks” “apostrophe” to correct ones. Then save it as something.reg and import…

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