David Geer Talks Tech
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Thursday, June 30, 2005
Stop computer crashes with control, alt, delete Courtesy of http://www.GeerCom.com.
Geer Communications - your on time technology writer!
Welcome!
You may know that you can shutdown your computer using control, alt, delete. Do it twice in that order holding down all three and you will reboot your Windows computer.
But, did you know that if you use control, alt, delete just one time you will bring up the Windows Task Manager? Try it now to see. You can close it fairly easily if you don't want to use it right now, just go to File in the upper left corner and select Exit Task Manager in Windows XP or hit the Cancel button bottom right under Windows 98.
Now, how can the Task Manager be useful? When your computer gets sluggish and crashes a lot, it may be because some software has crashed and frozen up in memory, never shutting down. You will have to deal with these programs manually.
Use control, alt, delete one time and look in the Task Manager window under applications or in the Close Program window under Windows 98. Scroll down if you need to and check each entry.
If you see some program names you don't recognize or that look like misspelled alphabet garbage don't worry, your computer uses processes you don't know about to do all the stuff it does.
If you see any entries with an entry next to them that says not responding, then this is at least part of your crashing or sluggish operation problem, and this will show you how to fix it.
Under XP, you will need to select one not responding item at a time and click the End Task Button at the bottom. Then you will need to wait or do this operation for that item again until you see a confirmation box to end task now. Once you confirm all the confirm windows you will need to go back and do likewise for anything that is not responding.
Do not ever end task on explorer.exe. This isn't Internet Explorer but rather the shell that gives you your desktop and computer interface, the graphical user interface or GUI that you actually see in your screen and interact with.
Under Windows 98, you need to highlight and end task the items that aren't responding in the same way. But, when you need to repeat and end task selection and button click, you will need to do the single control, alt, delete again to get back into the Task Manager. This is very tedious. When you finally see the separate confirmation window that you want to end task now, click the button and go to the next item that is not responding.
To avoid this problem in the future, don't try to do too many things at once.
Best,
David Geer - your on time technology writer!
Geer Communications
Geer Communications - your on time technology writer!
Welcome!
You may know that you can shutdown your computer using control, alt, delete. Do it twice in that order holding down all three and you will reboot your Windows computer.
But, did you know that if you use control, alt, delete just one time you will bring up the Windows Task Manager? Try it now to see. You can close it fairly easily if you don't want to use it right now, just go to File in the upper left corner and select Exit Task Manager in Windows XP or hit the Cancel button bottom right under Windows 98.
Now, how can the Task Manager be useful? When your computer gets sluggish and crashes a lot, it may be because some software has crashed and frozen up in memory, never shutting down. You will have to deal with these programs manually.
Use control, alt, delete one time and look in the Task Manager window under applications or in the Close Program window under Windows 98. Scroll down if you need to and check each entry.
If you see some program names you don't recognize or that look like misspelled alphabet garbage don't worry, your computer uses processes you don't know about to do all the stuff it does.
If you see any entries with an entry next to them that says not responding, then this is at least part of your crashing or sluggish operation problem, and this will show you how to fix it.
Under XP, you will need to select one not responding item at a time and click the End Task Button at the bottom. Then you will need to wait or do this operation for that item again until you see a confirmation box to end task now. Once you confirm all the confirm windows you will need to go back and do likewise for anything that is not responding.
Do not ever end task on explorer.exe. This isn't Internet Explorer but rather the shell that gives you your desktop and computer interface, the graphical user interface or GUI that you actually see in your screen and interact with.
Under Windows 98, you need to highlight and end task the items that aren't responding in the same way. But, when you need to repeat and end task selection and button click, you will need to do the single control, alt, delete again to get back into the Task Manager. This is very tedious. When you finally see the separate confirmation window that you want to end task now, click the button and go to the next item that is not responding.
To avoid this problem in the future, don't try to do too many things at once.
Best,
David Geer - your on time technology writer!
Geer Communications
