Name

Taskkill — \windows\system32\taskkill.exe

Synopsis

End one or more running processes, either on a local or remote system. (Taskkill is included with Windows XP Professional only.)

To Open

Command Prompt taskkill

Usage

taskkill [/s system [/u username [/p [password]]]]
  { [/fi filter] [/pid pid | /im image] } [/f] [/t]

Description

Taskkill is used to end one or more running processes from the command line. Taskkill works together with Tasklist, discussed later in this chapter, to provide command-line equivalents to the functionality provided by the Processes tab in Task Manager. For more information on processes, see Task Manager, discussed earlier in this chapter.

Taskkill takes the following command-line parameters:

/s system

Specifies the remote system to which to connect.

/u [ domain \] user

Specifies the user context under which the command should execute.

/p [ password ]

Specifies the password for the user specified by \u; prompts for input if omitted.

/f

Specifies to forcefully terminate process(es).

/fi filter

Displays a set of tasks that match a given criteria specified by the filter. Use Tasklist for more display options.

/pid process_id

Specifies the process ID of the process to be terminated. To obtain the process IDs, use Tasklist (later in this chapter).

/im image_name

Specifies the image name of the process to be terminated; specify * to terminate all image names.

/t

Terminates the specified process and process tree, which includes any child processes that were ...

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