"end Now" Kinda Hack?

[StealthG]

I remember somebody in this forum, or in the other one, that they showed some kinda hack where programs will automatically end when it prompted u with a "windows not responding" message following by an "end now" message? i get this alot when shutting down. its always window blinds and iexplore.exe. so does anyone know of what im talking about here? or how i can end these processes immediately when trying to shut down?

[JDoors]

Of couse the ideal resolution would be to fix the reason those programs are crashing. An uninstall/reinstall for WB and a Add/Remove Programs/IE/Repair for example.

There are ways of telling Windows to ignore hung programs and shut down no matter what, but that should never be used as the solution to this type of problem. Doing so can be like hitting the power button on the PC -- You will eventually wind up with corrupted files.

As Windows and other programs shut down many perform housecleaning duties such as saving and closing files, writing to the registry, logs, and other files, among other things. Force Windows to shut down and some of that may not occur at all or may be done incorrectly.

Even as a temporary solution during troubleshooting you risk corrupting important system files or other files you rely on. To get around to answering your question , I don't have the names of any such utilities or tweaks that I'd recommend, but a web search for WINDOWS SHUT DOWN UTILITIES should find some.

[CurlingSteve]

The "tweak" you're thinking of may be

Start, Run, Shutdown /F

The "/F" switch forces programs to close immediately without a prompt or waiting for them to finish housekeeping (as JDoors warns about).

It is NOT the recommended way of shutting down your system.

There is also a Registry tweak that changes the wait time before a program is forced to close.

(If you insist I'll look it up).

Again, forcing programs to close is NOT recommended.

[MrBill]

The "tweak" you're thinking of may be

Start, Run, Shutdown /F

The "/F" switch forces programs to close immediately without a prompt or waiting for them to finish housekeeping (as JDoors warns about).

It is NOT the recommended way of shutting down your system.

There is also a Registry tweak that changes the wait time before a program is forced to close.

(If you insist I'll look it up).

Again, forcing programs to close is NOT recommended.

It is called enditall

[StealthG]

For some reason i ALWAYS get these program "not responding" messages now. I have reinstalled windows blinds and it still occurs. i havent installed any other software as of late, and no hardware changes either so i dont know whats going on. i guess im going to leave it as it is.

[JDoors]

Well, Windows Blinds has to embed itself deep into the OS to perform its magic, so nearly anything else that's modifying the OS (antivirus for example) may be causing a conflict. You could do some manual troubleshooting by turning off all programs* that start with Windows except WB, then see if the problem goes away. If it does, add back one program at a time until you find what's conflicting with WB. Then check for an update to THAT program.

Personally, though I love to tweak the look of Windows to my preferences, I haven't used a troublefree utility since the Windows 3.x days. I've given up and no longer use any such utilities.

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*Use a startup utility to switch programs on & off. There should be several listed in the forum devoted to 'software you should have.'