# Killing a process with the Windows XP command prompt

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-a-process-with-the-windows-xp-command-prompt/412607>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 21, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-a-process-with-the-windows-xp-command-prompt/412607 "2007-07-21T00:09:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Scienceman123](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Scienceman123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scienceman123)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-a-process-with-the-windows-xp-command-prompt/412607/1 "2007-07-21T00:09:28Z")

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Is there any command to kill a process from the command line? Sort of like kill \<process\>?

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**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-a-process-with-the-windows-xp-command-prompt/412607/2 "2007-07-21T00:14:28Z")

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Yes, use the [TSKILL](http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ts_cmd_tskill.mspx) command.

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**Author:** ![PuddingCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b4bc9f/32.png) [@PuddingCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PuddingCat)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/killing-a-process-with-the-windows-xp-command-prompt/412607/3 "2007-07-21T00:15:17Z")

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[QUOTE=Scienceman123]  
Is there any command to kill a process from the command line? Sort of like kill \<process\>?  
[/QUOTE]

TSKILL is a built-in with some features, but you should go to [www.sysinternals.com](http://www.sysinternals.com) which re-directs to [Microsoft.com](http://Microsoft.com) and feast on the wealth of cool tools.

The one you want is pstools  
[http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PsTools.mspx](http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PsTools.mspx)

and has a pskill cmd line exe along with a load of funky stuff.

Feel free to PM me if you need any more help. Just spent a couple of weeks designing a _large_ scale system which uses pstools heavily.

thanks,  
Tim