Program to override usual window close button with superfast TerminateProcess?

[Twinbee]

I'm often looking for enhancements to improve Windows. Is there any program I can use to over-ride the usual close functionality with something a little....nippier?

You may notice when you quit a crashed program with the standard close button, it still takes a while to close. Using the task manager on the other hand is usually a much faster experience. Yes, I know it's supposed to be 'dangerous', but I'm prepared to experiment with the feature, and if I run into any problems I can always fall back to the old, slow way of exiting a crashed app. Perhaps the program I'm looking for could detect if it's crashed and end it quicker than Windows usually would. Or maybe a side-feature will allow you to close it normally by clicking Ctrl and the close button.

On a related note, a browser I used to use called Opera took *so* long to close, that I always ended up quitting it with the task manager just to save time and prevent the HD from thrashing. I never suffered any ill effects as a result.

[TaoPhoenix]

On a related note, a browser I used to use called Opera took *so* long to close, that I always ended up quitting it with the task manager just to save time and prevent the HD from thrashing. I never suffered any ill effects as a result.

-Twinbee (March 26, 2015, 01:30 PM)

I'll remark that I've def seen ill effects from "hard closing" applications. On the browser side, in FF / PaleMoon, if it crashes or if you kill it, when you restart it tries (helpfully) to reload all your tabs. So you should decide what to do about that.

On other applications, I've definitely noticed lost data depending on how the program saves. So be careful!

[MilesAhead]

I'm finding ProcessCloser very useful.  It sits in Tray.  Left click the Tray Icon to pop up a window.  Drag from that window to the window of the program you want to close.  You can set it to Close or Kill.  Also I find it good to disable the confirmation dialog since it can pop up behind the dead window.

It is smart enough not to try to close the Desktop.  

It has optional "program not responding" detection too.  A nice bit of freeware.

For programs with a top level visible window it is very quick.  No need to type in the process name or scroll through a list of running processes.

[TaoPhoenix]

Def check out the settings - I set it to "do not confirm" and a couple other things.

If I'm gonna go to that much effort to nuke something, I don't want the confirm box!

[Twinbee]

Thanks, looks pretty good - I might start using that. I'd like to get rid of the *other* confirmation box when it detects a program has crashed though.

But even better than this would be to allow a hotkey to force close the active/crashed window.

You can't set the detection level less than 15 seconds either which seems a bit arbitrary.

[MilesAhead]

Thanks, looks pretty good - I might start using that. I'd like to get rid of the *other* confirmation box when it detects a program has crashed though.

But even better than this would be to allow a hotkey to force close the active/crashed window.

You can't set the detection level less than 15 seconds either which seems a bit arbitrary.

-Twinbee (March 26, 2015, 05:19 PM)

There are bound to be hundreds(or at least a bunch anyway) of kill utilities on the freewae sites.  What struck me about this one was the mouse drag angle.  I could write a hotkey to kill the process that has the active window in a few lines.  But it wouldn't have much in the way of features.

I would give a try to sending the author an email or try contacting through the home page if there is a mechanism.  Many authors like to see that someone is actually using their utilities and may add a tweak.

[anandcoral]

Twinbee,

You can try SuperF4 (free), http://superf4.googlecode.com/.

It is must have app for me. Since I develop programs, many a times they go into infinite loop. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F4 instantly closes them, even faster that opening task manager and searching and killing it.

I also use it to close FireFox at times when I have lots of tabs opened and one tab causes FF 'not responding'. Killing FF and then restarting it get me all tabs back and then I close the erroneous tab and have other tabs to read.

Regards,

Anand

[Stoic Joker]

You can try SuperF4 (free), http://superf4.googlecode.com/.

It is must have app for me. Since I develop programs, many a times they go into infinite loop. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F4 instantly closes them, even faster that opening task manager and searching and killing it.

-anandcoral (March 27, 2015, 06:09 AM)

Now that does look handy! Another (unrelated) item I noticed on the authors website is Elevated Startup. I seem to recall there being several threads discussing a need for what it does...or at least appears to do.

[MilesAhead]

You can try SuperF4 (free), http://superf4.googlecode.com/.

It is must have app for me. Since I develop programs, many a times they go into infinite loop. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F4 instantly closes them, even faster that opening task manager and searching and killing it.

-anandcoral (March 27, 2015, 06:09 AM)

Now that does look handy! Another (unrelated) item I noticed on the authors website is Elevated Startup. I seem to recall there being several threads discussing a need for what it does...or at least appears to do.

-Stoic Joker (March 27, 2015, 07:02 AM)

I've downloaded and will try it in a bit.  It will be great if it works.  For example if you run WizMouse and set both Run As Administrator and Start with Windows, WizMouse creates a scheduled task to start itself on logon.  It works fine.  But I could sure use an easy hack for launching my stuff on W8.  Later on I'll have to look into how to handle auto start of programs on W8 and later as they seem to require RunAs.

Edit:  Your mileage may vary.  I have the slider on UAC all the way down to "do not notify me" of anything.  The first time I logged on using Elevated Startup I got the UAC.  I unchecked the "always notify" box.  The next boot it came up and started my run as programs.  Cool.  Now I can stop using the mouse double click macro thingy!

Edit2: Anyone else get a weird crash after running Elevated Startup?  I just unzipped a new copy of CCleaner Portable into the CCleaner folder and immediately got a "problem .. we're collecting data" crash.  Never got that before.  Strange.  I disabled it for now.

Edit3:  Before downloading Elevated Startup out of curiosity(since some of my programs would gain from auto start As Admin on W8 and likely W10) I took a look at the source.  It works by launching another instance of itself which then launches the other programs.  Somewhere in there it requests Debug privilege.  I'm thinking that is why I got the request to send info during the crash.  I don't like to run programs with Debug privilege as it just allows too much leeway to do stuff.  Not anything malicious in this utility.  But if you get an error it can be a lot bigger in Debug mode.  I have lots of mouse click stuff I wrote in the tray along with WizMouse so I'm not all that surprised I got a weird drag/drop operation.

I think I will check into how WizMouse does it, if possible. I hate to use scheduled tasks though. 

[Twinbee]

SuperF4 looks good. I've used it, and it does indeed force close crashed programs!

A couple of niggles though. One is I can't adjust the hotkey. Two is if a program's crashed, and I click another program, and then I try to refocus the crashed window, it won't refocus, and SuperF4 ends up trying to close Windows or something else instead.

Anyway, a keeper for me Thanks muchly anandcoral!

[TaoPhoenix]

Twinbee,

You can try SuperF4 (free), http://superf4.googlecode.com/.

It is must have app for me. Since I develop programs, many a times they go into infinite loop. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F4 instantly closes them, even faster that opening task manager and searching and killing it.

I also use it to close FireFox at times when I have lots of tabs opened and one tab causes FF 'not responding'. Killing FF and then restarting it get me all tabs back and then I close the erroneous tab and have other tabs to read.

Regards,

Anand

-anandcoral (March 27, 2015, 06:09 AM)

Just chiming in, this is a broader use case than it sounds.

I sometimes don't get involved in these little programs, but the "super browser overload" problem creeps in faster than many people realize!