Windows App Frozen? Here's an Easy Way to Kill It

Ooh, I love the folks at Lifehacker. Not a day goes by where I don't read something that's marginally useful at worst, exquisitely awesome at best.

And today's no exception, thanks to the How-To Geek, who offers a great alternative to using the Windows Task Manager to shut down frozen ("not responding") applications.

Why do you need an alternative? Well, in my experience, when an app freezes up really well, it can create a really long wait before the Task Manager comes up after I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. It'd be much more productive to be able to just hit a hotkey, right?

If you agree, here's how to create a quick-kill shortcut.

First create a new shortcut anywhere, using this as the location:

taskkill.exe /f /fi "status eq not responding"

Then, change the icon, or even assign a shortcut key in the properties dialog. Just make sure the shortcut is on your desktop or in the start menu if you want the hotkey to work, says Lifehacker, since Windows hotkeys don't work in the Quick Launch.

(image courtesy Lifehacker)