It appears that Windows 8 has broken the taskkill command in part at least (actually, I think it is more likely a broken ability to set the debug attribute, which in prior Windows versions allowed taskkill to kill programs even if in a different security
context but I don't know exactly how to test that or prove my hypothesis). When attempting to kill a process that is hung on exit (e.g., attempted a normal exit from the program, but it hangs and fails to exit, and continues to consume system resources),
there appears to be no way to terminate the application/service, and an "access denied" error is generated even though run from the administrator command prompt.
I have had this happen now many times with chrome.exe (which seems to have lots of issues with Windows 8 in general, but especially when exiting), as well as Skype.exe (a perpetual problem child program under any system). It is repeatable if you can
get any program to crash/hang on exit:
(1) start a bunch of chrome.exe windows, especially ones that require resources like scripts, and then attempt to exit chrome window by window - this will cause chrome to crash on exit 5/10 times. Confirm hung process via ctr-shift-esc and see
that at least one chrome task is still running (chrome window may or may not still be visible)
(2) From the administrator command line: "taskkill /IM chrome /F" which will give the access denied error.
(3) psutils is also unsuccessful: pskill chrome /F also gives same error (run from administrator command prompt)
As I understand prior Windows releases, there is a debug attribute that was set by these particular utilities (under Windows 7 and earlier) which allowed taskkill and pskill to kill processes even when the task manager failed to do so. It seems
that something is broken under Windows 8 now in that regard.
Any ideas how to fix? is there a registry fix? Another utility that works under Windows 8?
JeffN
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context but I don't know exactly how to test that or prove my hypothesis). When attempting to kill a process that is hung on exit (e.g., attempted a normal exit from the program, but it hangs and fails to exit, and continues to consume system resources),
there appears to be no way to terminate the application/service, and an "access denied" error is generated even though run from the administrator command prompt.
I have had this happen now many times with chrome.exe (which seems to have lots of issues with Windows 8 in general, but especially when exiting), as well as Skype.exe (a perpetual problem child program under any system). It is repeatable if you can
get any program to crash/hang on exit:
(1) start a bunch of chrome.exe windows, especially ones that require resources like scripts, and then attempt to exit chrome window by window - this will cause chrome to crash on exit 5/10 times. Confirm hung process via ctr-shift-esc and see
that at least one chrome task is still running (chrome window may or may not still be visible)
(2) From the administrator command line: "taskkill /IM chrome /F" which will give the access denied error.
(3) psutils is also unsuccessful: pskill chrome /F also gives same error (run from administrator command prompt)
As I understand prior Windows releases, there is a debug attribute that was set by these particular utilities (under Windows 7 and earlier) which allowed taskkill and pskill to kill processes even when the task manager failed to do so. It seems
that something is broken under Windows 8 now in that regard.
Any ideas how to fix? is there a registry fix? Another utility that works under Windows 8?
JeffN
View the full article