How to Terminate Full Screen Game or Software Process when H

Pratik K (Student) (3406 Points)

07 January 2009  

How to Terminate Full Screen Game or Software Process when Hang


Actually it is pretty simple and doesn’t require any advance

level of computer knowledge. First you need to know what is the

process name used by the game. Let’s take Counter Strike Source

as an example. You can check the process name for the game by

right clicking the CSS shortcut and select Properties. Go to

the Shortcut tab to view the Target. As you can see, CSS

process is actually hl2.exe (half-life 2).
Counter Strike Source Process Name

Now you need to create a batch file that will kill the hl2.exe

process when you simultaneously hit a combination of shortcut

keys. Open Notepad (Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad),

and type the command line shown below.

taskkill /IM hl2.exe

You should replace the hl2.exe with the target of your game

that you want to kill. Save the text file as killcss.bat or

whatever you want to call it as long as the extension is .bat

and not .txt. When you run the killcss.bat file, it should be

able to close the game. Now we will assign a shortcut key to

run the batch file.

Right click the killcss.bat file and select “Create Shortcut”.

A new file named “Shortcut to killcss.bat” will appear. Right

click at “Shortcut to killcss.bat” file and select Properties.

Click at the Shortcut Key blank area and type any key of your

choice. If you type the letter “L”, it will automatically

assign Ctrl + Alt + L as the shortcut key to run the

killcss.bat file.

shortcut key at desktop

One very more important rule is that the .bat file MUST be

placed at desktop for the shortcut key to take effect.

When the game hangs in future, I just need to hit Ctrl + Alt +

L key to kill the game so I can restart the game without hard

resetting my computer.