BleepingComputer.com: How to shut down a hanging window

This tip appeared in a Microsoft MSDN blog and has been repeated at Gizmos. Could be pretty handy.



How to cleanly terminate Windows Explorer


Windows XP:


Open the Start menu
Click “Turn Off Computer”
Hold down the Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys and click the "Cancel" button.
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Windows Vista and Windows 7:


Open the Start menu
Hold down the Ctrl + Shift keys and right-click in an empty spot inside the Start menu. (Keep holding down the keys while you click.)
A hidden menu will pop up
Click “Exit Explorer”
After either of these procedures you may have a very empty screen but the system is still operating. If you have changed the default Explorer settings to "Launch folder windows in a separate process", then some folder windows may not close when you apply this trick.
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How to restart Windows Explorer


To restore Windows Explorer in all versions of Windows, do the following:


Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Task Manager
In Task Manager, open the "File” menu
Choose “New Task (Run...)"
Type "Explorer" and click OK
Windows Explorer will reappear.


http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-cleanly-and-quickly-terminate-and-restart-windows-explorer.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmosbest+%28Gizmo%27s+Best-ever+Freeware%29

On XP if a program is stuck and not the entire OS you can CTRL-Shift-ESC to open Task manager and go to the processes tab and end the offending program out right without shutting down the explorer shell. Or alternately if the shell is stuck too kill the explorer process and then just go back to the applications tab and restart explorer as a new task.

I am on Win98se and all i do is open task manager and click END TASK on explorer,quite easy


EDIT:

I just tried the way rowal5555 listed AND THAT WORKS ALSO!! (I didnt know that)

Quite interesting...... (When you restart explorer this way,IT RE-LAUNCHES ALL OF YOUR STARTUP ENTRIES)

This post has been edited by 4dude: 10 October 2011 - 07:44 PM

I usually use Process Explorer of Sysinternals to find the cause of the hang first and terminate the hanging process later .

For Windows 7

Step 1 - Type Ctrl + Alt + Del
Step 2 - Click the Task Manager
Step 3 - Go to Processes Tab in Windows Task Manager
Step 4 - End Process the iexplore.exe