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Once in a while, one of your applications will lock up and you would have to kill it (in the good sense of the word). Of course this will cause you to lose any unsaved data. At least you will learn to save your work more often, right?

But wait, there is something you may try first … before shutting it down “ungracefully”…

Using RESMON

  1. When the application locks up, click Start and type: resmon in the search box.
  2. Right-Click the RESMON.EXE and run it as an Administrator .
  3. In the CPU pane, find the process that’s locked up (it should be indicated in red).
  4. Right click it and select “Analyze Wait Chain.”

If there are two or more processes shown, the one at the end of the list is the one that’s locking up your application. If it’s not a critical process (i.e., an essential windows or application component), you can check it and click “End Process.”

Depending on your level of luck, this should release your application and it will start responding again.

It doesn’t work every time, but it’s worth a try – Good Luck!

If you would like to know more about the Resource Monitor, check out this article by Rich.

About Thomas

Computer geek from the age of 7, which amounts to 30 years of computer experience. From the early days (when every computer company had their own OS) of DOS, Windows 1.0 through Seven...

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