Microsoft KB Archive/197155

= How to Kill an Orphaned Process =

Article ID: 197155

Article Last Modified on 2/22/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition

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This article was previously published under Q197155



SUMMARY
When a service terminates abnormally, "orphaned" child processes may remain. This article describes several methods to remove this kind of process.



Method 1: The KILL Command
To remove orphaned child processes, use the kill command from the Resource Kit:

kill 

-or-

kill -f 

To obtain a list of processes and process IDs, use the Task Manager or the TLIST utility from the Resource Kit.

Method 2: The AT Utility
If neither of the commands described in the preceding section work, if the Schedule service is running on the computer in the Local System context, you may be able to terminate the process successfully by scheduling one of the preceding commands with the AT utility:

at  /interactive cmd /c kill -f  

Method 3: The PVIEW Utility
If method 1 and method 2 are unsuccessful, use the PVIEW utility from the Resource Kit, Supplement 3, to adjust the permissions on the process and then kill it. You must be an Administrator to perform this task.

Note PVIEW may not run correctly in a Terminal Services session.
 * 1) Start Pview.exe.
 * 2) Click the target process from the list of processes.
 * 3) Click Process in the Security pane, adjust the permissions of the process to give administrators (or the currently logged-on user) all accesses to the process, and then repeat this step for Thread security and Process Token security.
 * 4) Use the kill command to terminate the process.

If none of these procedures work, you must restart the system to terminate the process.

