Cannot end Windows 7 process, even tried pskill

Question

I am having a problem where processes are hanging and absolutely refuse to die. I have tried using the task manager and pskill from the console (with admin rights) and while the program will state that it has killed the process it still remains and I cannot open a second process. This has happened with Opera and Truecrypt.

Operating system is Windows 7 Professional (64-bit). Rebooting the computer clears the hung process.

I also tried using a program called Ultimate Process Detail & Killer, which didn't help either.

Answer 1

• Try the debugger:

   ntsd -p <pid> -c q
  

• Processes can be unkillable if they are waiting for an I/O or similar operation to finish ("uninterruptible sleep") (see also [1])

• or if they are already dead¹ (aka "zombie processes" in Unix).

  ¹The Old New Thing: Why do some process stay in Task Manager after they've been killed?

Answer 2

Use the following command:

Taskkill /IM **.exe /F

Answer 3

Space Tornado Killer might do the trick, as I have it installed on my PC.

Space Tornado Killer is a free Windows utility that allows you to end/kill multiple running Windows processes at once, with one click of a button. Hold down Ctrl and click to select one, two, three or any number of processes. Then simply click Kill Selected or hit F4 to end all the selected processes at once.

This utility is designed to complement Task Manager, not replace it.

For further details & to download

http://www.spacetornado.com/killer/