How to kill a process in Windows XP / Vista / 7

This is something that is very useful at times when a virus is being really stubborn by popping back into task manager.

Linux users know very well how easy it is to kill a process since it is a command line based operating system.

But I have found a long time ago a really easy to use command from the command line in Windows.

The first thing you will want to know is the process ID or process name.  Open task manager and click on Processes.  Each process executable will be listed and note which one you want to terminate.  For services, open task manager and click on the Services tab.  The process ID (PID) will be in the second column listed next to the service name (first column).

Open command line as administrator and type in one of the following command to kill the process:

taskkill /IM [image name].exe /F
taskkill /PID [process id] /F


For the above two commands, the first command listed above is for killing a Process and the second command is for killing a Service.  The /F switch forcefully terminates the process.

From The Windows Club