| Even though Windows XP is fairly immune to crashing, the applications that run on it are not necessarily so robust. Not to be cynical, but many IS professionals don't consider any version of Windows worth their trouble until at least a service pack or two hit the streets, because they know bugs tend to be prevalent in first-release software. As of SP2, XP has made that milestone. Still, with an operating system as complex as Windows XP, we bet there are a few gotchas lurking.  If your system is still stuck but you can get the Task Manager up, If your laptop computer wont shut down no matter what you do, see "Ctrl+Alt+Delete Doesn't Work" in the "Troubleshooting" section at the end of this chapter.
My point here is that you're going to bump into some unstable behavior from time to time. If you notice that a program's not responding, you may have a crash on your hands. To gracefully survive a crash, possibly even without losing any of your data, try the following steps: 1. | Try pressing Esc. Some programs get stuck in the middle of a process and Esc can sometimes get them back on track. For example, if you accidentally pressed Alt, this activates the menus. A press of Esc will get you out of that loop. If you've opened a menu, two presses of Esc or a click within the application's window may be required to return to normal operation.
| 2. | Windows XP has greatly improved application-management facilities. In most cases, even after an application has crashed, you should still be able to minimize, maximize, move, resize, and close its window.
| 3. | Can you switch to the app to bring its window up front? First try clicking any portion of the window. If that doesn't work, click its button in the taskbar. Still no? Try using successive presses of Alt+Tab. If you get the window open and responding, try to save any unfinished work in the app and then try to close it by clicking the close button or selecting the File, Exit.
| 4. | If that doesn't work, try right-clicking the program's button in the taskbar and choosing Close from the pop-up menu.
| 5. | If that doesn't work, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch the Task Manager. Notice the list of running applications. Does the one in question say "Not responding" next to it? If so, click it and then click End Task.
| 6. | If Task Manager reports that you don't have sufficient access to terminate the task, you must reboot the system. First, attempt a graceful shutdown using the Turn Off Computer command. However, if that fails (that is, it hangs on the hung application or it never seems to complete the shutdown process), you'll need to resort to power cycling. Once the system reboots you should be back to normal.
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