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How to Quit Apps in Windows 10

Of all of the issues that Macs and PCs users discuss, crashing and unresponsive programs rank as among the more bothersome commonalities. If you are switching from a Mac to a PC, you will kiss Force Quit goodbye, and rely on Task Manager to close down programs that you can not stop by traditional ways.

It is not unusual for a program to stop responding on Windows 10. If it happens, it is possible to force the program to close down, effectively unfreezing said program. Here are the ways to force quit a program on Windows 10.

Quit App by using a short cut

Make sure the frozen app is in focus as you try this short cut. Now press Alt+F4 on your computer to shut it.

When the Windows desktop is in focus rather, you will notice a “Shut Down” Windows instead as shown below.

windows quit app

Be careful that you did not press the enter button. Just press the Escape key in that case. Try Alt+Tab to get the focus of App that you want to close.

Use the task manager utility for closing App

As its name suggests, Task Manager is a tool that reveals which programs are now running (in addition to other info like source use and procedure stats) also permits you to manage them appropriately.

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In order to open the Task Manager, you can press Ctrl+Shift+Esc on your computer or click on the Windows task bar and choose “Task Manager” from the menu.

windows quit task manager

You may also open the Task Manager by pressing the Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys at precisely the exact same moment. This brings up a display that states, “Preparing security preferences” until you find a brief list of tasks.

windows keyboard

 

With Task Manager open, choose the task that you would like to force stop, then choose “End Task.”

If you do not find the name of this program from the list here, click “More Details” and see it from the record on the Processes tab.

The frozen app will close.

Third way: Using the command prompt for closing app

Step 1

It’s possible to find and force stop tasks from the Command Prompt.

You may open the Command Prompt by typing “cmd” from the Windows search bar, then selecting the “Command Prompt” program from the search results.

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windows cmd

Step 2

As command Prompt appears, type the following command:

tasklist

and then press enter.

The command prompt should list the following:

  • Programs
  • Services
  • Tasks

Step 3

After identifying your app to be closed, you need to run the taskkill command as follows:

taskkill /im <program>.exe

So, if I desired to force quit Notepad, I would run this command:

taskkill /im notepad.exe

This should close the desired app that was annoying you or frozen.