Close computer program running

For those of you keeping score at home, that's seven steps that can be accomplished in less than 10 seconds. If you're concerned about having to remember these or other shortcut keys, press the Alt key to show the underline beneath the letter to press to activate each option.

There's more than one way to turn off your PC At the end of a long workday your last official act may be to press the power button on your PC to turn it off. But there's a way to power off your system without taking your hands off the keyboard: in Windows 7, press the Windows key, then the right-arrow key, and then Enter; in Vista, press the Windows key, then the right arrow three times, and then u; in XP, press the Windows key and then u twice.

Windows will prompt you to save any files that require it before closing the host app, just as it does when you press the power button or click "Shut down" on the Start menu which is an odd place for a "Shut down" button, if you ask me. Equal time for Mac users: open the shutdown dialog by pressing Control-Eject; activate sleep mode by pressing Option-Command-Eject; close all applications and restart the machine by pressing Control-Command-Eject you'll be prompted to save changes to open documents ; close all applications and shut down by pressing Control Option-Command-Eject once again, you'll be prompted to save changes to open documents.

Keep in mind that some organizations want you to leave your PC running because updates and backups may be scheduled for the middle of the night. You can use it either as an instruction to use as and when or set it as a desktop shortcut. If you come up against a lot of unresponsive programs, it might be worthwhile setting up this command as a desktop shortcut.

That way, all you need to do is double-click an icon and Windows will force close the program. Now if a program freezes, just double click the icon and the script should automatically close any program that is not responding. You can also assign it a shortcut key combination for even faster execution. ProcessXP is a free program that you can use instead of Task Manager. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, so please try both before you decide on one.

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