Hello. I am using Cubase5 for my daily work and everything performs like XP, however...Like all vst hosts and complex apps it WILL crash sooner or later and this is where issues arise: Once the vst host has crashed I cannot kill the still lingering process...thus I cannot restart the app and continue with my work... I have to wait for windows7 to handle it, just like in VISTA, GRRR! With XP I merely killed the app process and continued on with my work, merely a 10second interuption. This is not the case with vista/win7 though as the interuption can easily span several minutes... I understand that vista/win7 employs a new way to handle processes, as I understand it the new concept is to try to restore a failed process/unresponsive application, in an effort to save data, but this handling is pure grief imho, as most professional applications will not be restored due to their complexity, thus it only delays the inevitable - termination of the process! Anyways, any info on how to force the OS to fully terminate a process or revert the OS back to XP style task handling is appreciated! Thanks for reading! /Daniel SYSTEM INFO: Gigabyte DS3, cpuE400, 4gbRam, hd4890, windows7RC

Make a shortcut to taskkill.exe. Kill notepad = Taskkill.exe /f /t /im notepad.exeKill Task manager =Taskkill.exe /f /t /im taskmgr.exe

Yes, you can create a desktop shortcut to kill a process or terminate hanging program with taskkill command. You can refer to the following detailed steps: 1. Right click on the empty area of the desktop and select New >> Desktop shortcut 2. Now copy and paste the following path in the target box C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /f /im <process name> For Example C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /f /im iexplore.exe Note: a. /f is for force kill and /im is to kill all instances of any process b. You can get to know the process name for any program through Task Manager under the Process tab. Press ctrl+shift+esc to open task manager. 3. Give a name to your shortcut and click Finish. You can also refer to the following article: How To Kill Unresponsive Programs without The Task Manager Please note that the correct path should be C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /f /im <process name> instead of the following: C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe -f -im <process name> Good Luck!

Hello, sorry for the delay in replying. I have tried all these alternatives, unfortunately windows7 will not terminate any tasks, the process remains in the tasklist. The bigger the application the longer it takes it seems, as if the OS is examining what went wrong and trying to recover... I have also tried several 3rd party utils such as PSkill, killprocess, Process Explorer etc etc with no avail, it seems that this new windows was designed to prohibit instant termination of processes. All I can do is wait for windows to go through the "wait chain" and in the time of writing 'cubase5.exe' just crashed yet its process/thread/task is still active in the taskmanager several minutes after the fact/crash, hogging whatever resources I loaded at normal runtime (at the time of crash I was working with EWQL symphonic orchestra and used about 2-3gig of RAM). So you see, those resources will not be free'd until windows7 decides, in its not so timely manner that, that the process cant be recovered. Im sure this new design of process handling was with good intent but I must say it doesnt really pan out well in day to day work. P.S. This has been tested on several machines of varying performance with applications as MAYA, Cubase5, Nuendo4, 3dsMAX 2009 and everytime any of these apps encounters an error windows7 will take long time to clean up, it is that long wait between crash and restart that is a workflow killer. In XP all you had to do was kill the process and restart, in win7 you wait for the OS to process through the "wait chain" which takes ages :/ anyways, thanks for the answers and lets hope Microsoft are aware of this.

Win 7 is attempting to recover the programs or processes, thats why it needs much time. For the programs you have mentioned such as MAYA, Cubase5, Nuendo4 and 3dsMAX 2009, the system requirement for them is really high, the recovery will take a long time. You can check the following support article to set the process to a higher priority make it faster (run faster and close/end faster). How to Permanently Set Process Priority in Windows Task Manager? I hope it will be helpful. Have a nice day!