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Hands-on lab

End a runaway process and a frozen app

When a PC crawls and an app hangs, Task Manager is the first stop: sort the Processes tab by CPU to find the process pinning the processor, use the Status column to find the app that is Not responding, and End task on each. This lab uses the simulated Task Manager; a real PC works the same way.

Start the interactive lab

Steps

  1. 1

    Open Task Manager and sort the Processes tab by CPU to surface the runaway process.

    Simulator Task Manager Processes tab sorted by CPU, with a runaway background process at the top and an app marked Not responding, both selected for End task.
  2. 2

    Select the runaway process (the one pinning the CPU) and click End task.

  3. 3

    Find the app whose Status is Not responding, select it, and click End task.

What you should see

Each ended process drops off the list and CPU usage settles. The frozen app closes instead of hanging the desktop.

Study the concept

Do it yourself in the interactive lab