killing a process that can't be killed (premiere pro... grr)

[Mug Funky]

hi all.

i've got a little problem - i ran premiere pro yesterday and haven't rebooted yet. i've got a big long encode running, so i'd rather not.

anyhoo, the "Adobe Premiere Pro.exe" process is still running and i can't kill it. not even sysinternal's Process Explorer could do it.

i'm running SP2 if that makes a difference.

it'd be good to know if there's anything out there that can terminate a process that not even process explorer can handle (this program is able to terminate every single windows process - even the critical ones that force a reboot)

TIA

[unskinnyboy]

This might be a very obvious suggestion and you might have tried it already, but, have you tried 'End Process Tree' with Task Manager itself? For me, it has terminated some very stubborn processes at times. Of course, all processes tied to this process will be terminated too.

Also, did you try Taskkill (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/taskkill.mspx?mfr=true)?

[Mug Funky]

just tried taskkill (with /f as well...)

says it's sucessfully killed it, but it's still there and under the same PID.

grrr. why must Adobe write such bad software? how can they justify releasing software with so so so many serious bugs and call it "pro"?

is there anything stronger than taskkill?

[foxyshadis]

If you start process explorer (or taskkill) as LOCALSYSTEM, you can kill anything, no ifs, ands, or buts. To get system, use something like "at 15:12 /interactive path/to/procexp.exe", where the time is one or two minutes from now. There's also a command "soon" available in the 2K/2003 resource packs, which replaces the absolute time by a delay in seconds.

The only time you can't kill something is if a kernel driver is wedged. In that case, it's reboot time. (Used to happen to my old laptop coming out of hibernate sometimes - it would work fine, except anytime something tries to access the network, that process would hang unkillably waiting for the wireless driver to work.)

[Shinigami-Sama]

umm
killbox?
I've used it to kill things that proc explorer can't
theres no url for the version I have though

[Ebobtron]

pview

comes with MS PSDK "tools"

pick your p from the list.

use kill app button on the bottom


good luck there

[ChrisBensch]

On some machines what I've done is use the 'at' command to launch and interactive cmd window, for some reason, it has priveleges to kill processes that a normal terminal session can't.

at 11:45 /interactive cmd.exe

just set it for 1 minute in the future and it'll pop it up
then just use kill <pid>

[foxyshadis]

That's because at (the task schduler) runs under the localsystem account in xp, which has many kernel-level privileges no user account does. It's not a bad idea to create a service that does nothing but pop up a command window owned by system, when you need it. I think I'll do that.

[buzzqw]

try with Advanced Process Termiantor (freeware)

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=135004 (i love this tool, and wilders forum too)

BHH

[HyperHacker]

FYI, not being able to kill a process is more likely a problem with Windows then with the process itself.