Tech Update

All versions of Windows whether it be 98, 2000, XP, or Vista, use one form of the Task Manger or another. The answer to your problems when a program stops responding is crtl-alt-delete. Usually a normal user uses this dialog to open the task manager and end the program that is not responding. But….if you dive in a little deeper into the task manager, you can find loads more information from it. For example, see those tabs at the top, click on processes. These are all of the parts, bits and pieces of programs running right now on your system. explorer.exe is Windows explorer and you can end this process and re-enable it by going up to run… (I wouldn’t advise this though as windows explorer can cause problems if ended improperly). Let’s say that Firefox all of a sudden stopped responding. You opened up task manager, and you clicked on Firefox and end task. Nothing happened. Now what??? You can use your newly acquired knowledge with Task Manager and dive into the process. If you click the name column at the top, it sorts them alphabetically, easier to find. Locate firefox about 1/3 of the way down. Now highlight it and select end process in the bottom right corner. That’s it, Firefox ends immediately.

This solution is helpful, but with most guides, excercise caution with using the windows task manager, as one wrong process ended and you could crash your system.