Section 6.3. When Programs Die: The Task Manager: All Versions


6.3. When Programs Die: The Task Manager: All Versions

Windows may be a revolution in stability (at least if you're used to, say, Windows Me), but that doesn't mean that programs never crash or freeze. They crash, all rightit's just that you rarely have to restart the computer as a result.

When something goes horribly wrong with a program, your primary interest is usually exiting it. But when a program locks up (the cursor moves, but menus and tool palettes don't respond) or when a dialog box tells you that a program has "failed to respond," exiting may not be so easy. After all, how do you choose File Exit if the File menu itself doesnt open ?

As in past versions of Windows, the solution is to invoke the "three-fingered salute": Ctrl+Alt+Delete.


Tip: Actually, there may be a quicker solution. Try right-clicking the frozen program's taskbar button; from the shortcut menu, choose Close. This trick doesn't always workbut when it does, it's much faster than using the Task Manager.

In Vista, however, Ctrl+Alt+Delete no longer opens the fabled Task Manager. Instead, it opens the new Windows Security screen (Figure 6-1).

Figure 6-1. Top: Click the Task Manager button on the Windows Security dialog box to check on the status of a troublesome program .
Bottom: As if you didn't know, one of these programs is "not responding." Highlight its name and then click End Task to slap it out of its misery. Once the program disappears from the list, close the Task Manager and get on with your life. You can even restart the same program right awayno harm done .


From here you can get to the Task Managerby clicking Start Task Manager (Figure 6-1, top). Now you see a list of every open program. The Status column should make clear what you already know: that one of your programs is ignoring you.


Tip: You can also run Task Manager by right-clicking the taskbar and, from the shortcut menu, choosing Task Manager from the shortcut menu. Doing this bypasses the Windows Security dialog box and brings you directly to Windows Task Manager, with the Applications tab selected.

As shown in Figure 6-1, shutting down the troublesome program is fairly easy; just click its name and then click the End Task button. (If yet another dialog box appears, telling you that "This program is not responding," click the End Now button.)

UP TO SPEED
Sending an Error Report to Microsoft

Whenever Windows detects that a program has exited, shall we say, eccentrically for example, it froze and you had to terminate ityour PC quietly sends a report back to Microsoft, the mother ship, via the Internet. It provides the company with the technical details about whatever was going on at the moment of the freeze, crash, or premature termination.

The information includes the name and version number of the program, the date and time, and other details. Microsoft swears that it doesn't collect any information about you .

Microsoft says that it has two interests in getting this information. First, it collates the data into gigantic electronic databases, which it then analyzes using special software tools. The idea, of course, is to find trends that emerge from studying hundreds of thousands of such reports . "Oh, my goodness, it looks like people who own both Speak-it Pro 5 and Beekeeper Plus who right-click a document that's currently being printed experience a system lockup ," an engineer might announce one day. By analyzing the system glitches of its customers en masse, the company hopes to pinpoint problems and devise software patches with much greater efficiency than before.

Second, Microsoft's computers may also react to the information on the spot and send you a dialog box that lets you know about an available fix.

Windows XP did this report-sending, too, but it asked you each time a program crashed. In Vista, the report-sending feature is either turned on all the time or off all the time.

To adjust the settings, choose Start Control Panel; click Classic View; open the Problem Reports and Solutions applet. On the left-side task pane, click "Change settings." In the resulting dialog box, click "Advanced settings." There, before you, is the On/Off switch (where it says, "For my programs, problem reporting is:").

This dialog box offers various other privacy controls. For example, you can create a Block listprograms whose crashes won't be reported . (This means you, owners of Music Piracy Plus 4.0.) You can also specify whether crashes are always reported, never reported, or left to the discretion of each account holder.

Finally, you can see a list of the reports it's sent so far; click "View problem history." For details on the Problems and Solutions system, see Chapter 22.


When you jettison a recalcitrant program this way, Windows generally shuts down the troublemaker gracefully, even offering you the chance to save unsaved changes to your documents.

If even this treatment fails to close the program, you might have to slam the door the hard way. Click the Processes tab, click the name of the program that's giving you grief , and then click the End Process button. (The Processes list includes dozens of programs, including many that Windows runs behind the scenes. Finding the abbreviated name of the program may be the hardest part of this process.)

Using this method, you'll lose any unsaved changes to your documentsbut at least the frozen program is finally closed.


Tip: If you click a program's taskbar button but its window doesn't appear, the program may be frozen. In that case, try right-clicking the taskbar button; from the shortcut menu, choose Restore.



Windows Vista. The Missing Manual
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596528272
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 284
Authors: David Pogue

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