How to end a process that wont end?

I'm finding my PC very slow all of a sudden, and I think it has to do with Skype. I've logged out, shut it down but it stills hows in the processes queue, and no matter how many times I ask it to be ended it wont. I know I could uninstall it but I do use it, so has anyone any ideas other than shutting down the PC?
Thx
TH

Comments

  • TrueCardTrueCard Posts: 679
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    If there's no option within Skype that says "Start up when windows starts" or similar that you could untick then I recommend downloading the Autoruns tool from the Sysinternals suite and disable it from starting up in there.

    In Autoruns you can either untick the entry to make it temporary or delete the entry to get rid of it altogether.
  • TrollheartTrollheart Posts: 5,093
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    Thanks. It seems to have sorted itself out now that I've rebooted. Just some sort of locked loop of data or something that wouldn't allow Skype to be closed and so was using most of my resources, is what I think.

    I'll be keeping an eye on it in future...
  • evil cevil c Posts: 7,833
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    If you have Windows Vista, 7 or 8 have a look at the Reliability Monitor and see if there is an error condition showing and/or any other icons indicating errors, also when. You could also view the Application log in the Event Viewer via Control panel/Performance Information and Tools/Advanced tools, if you know what to do.

    Is Skype in the list of Startup programs? if you have CCleaner you can go into Tools and then click Startup. From the list displayed see if Skype is there. If it is and Enabled = Yes then right click the program line and then click Disable. This will leave the program on your machine but stop it starting automatically when Windows starts. You don't need to save it as a text file. Post here if that works or not and say which Windows operating system you have.

    Of course it might not be Skype at all. When you go into Task Manager is it taking up a lot of memory resource in comparison to the other processes?

    Also when you say 'very slow all of a sudden' what do you mean? Do you mean you were using the machine normally and suddenly it went slow, or do you mean that you've noticed over the last few day/weeks that gradually it has become slower? Did you install any new programs, make any changes or have a problem just before the slowness started?

    Have you had the PC a long time and do you regularly clean out old files and browsing history etc?
  • TrollheartTrollheart Posts: 5,093
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    I have Windows 7 Home Premium, full copy, just completely freshly reinstalled a few days ago. My PC is a six-core AMD Phenom with 8 gig memory.

    I noticed that when moving from webpage tab to tab, and when using Google Docs it was so slow that it took a minute or so for the text to appear on screen, resulting in my overtyping and misspelling words. Spotify was working at the time too. But Skype would not shut down no matter what I did. In Task Manager I hit it multiple times asking for the process to be ended, it would not. I eventually rebooted and the speed is so much better now, though I have no yet run Skype.

    I don't think it's a case of Skype running at startup, that wasn't the issue. It was that it remained a running process even though the program had been shut down, and this seemed to be grabbing a lot of resources and slowing down my machine. It's all I could see that would be doing that, as there was very little else running at the time.

    Edit: I've had the PC about two years. As this was a fresh install then no, I had not installed any other programs or if I had they were wiped out by the Windows install. The slowdown was quite sudden, as if everything had just slammed to a halt.
  • evil cevil c Posts: 7,833
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    Sorry I didn't get back to you before now, I'm not well and had a bad day yesterday. I should have asked you what process it was but seeing I didn't what I've just done is Google 'why would a skype process keep running when the program was shut down?'

    It appears that there are problems with the process skype.exe in some versions of Skype as well as other problems since Microsoft bought Skype. Here are 2 threads from the Skype Community Forum which may answer your query.

    Kill process skype.exe - how? http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/Kill-process-skype-exe-How/td-p/22736

    Skype.exe process does not stop after sign-out or close: http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/Skype-exe-process-does-not-stop-after-sign-out-or-close/td-p/277908
  • JeffG1JeffG1 Posts: 15,243
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    TrueCard wrote: »
    I recommend downloading the Autoruns tool from the Sysinternals suite and disable it from starting up in there.

    In Autoruns you can either untick the entry to make it temporary or delete the entry to get rid of it altogether.

    Why download a third-party application when this is built into the operating system?

    Just type 'msconfig' in the Search box on the start menu, then go to the Startup tab. Untick those programs you don't want to start up automatically.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 12,003
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    Siimplest way is to CTRL-ALT-Delete to get to Task Manager, then highlight Skype under the Processes Tab and end the process.
    That'll get rid of it, running or not, for this session, and it will still start-up next time you reboot (unless you do as mentioned above to stop that.

    TBH if you don't use Skype all the time you might as well take it off startup and just fire it up when you need it. Saves resources, and saves faffing about with Task Manager.
  • spiney2spiney2 Posts: 27,058
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    stop most tasks with windows task manager. right cick and select "end process".

    many tasks start when the computer is booted but this is unnecessary. goto windows help and search for "system config" . select "show all". click on link to system configuration. look at startup items and remove those you dont want to autostart when computer boots (be careful not to disable firewall and anti virus!). select "apply" and the computer will restart but with unwanted startups now removed.

    you can also return startups back to "default" in system config and before making all such configuration changes its always a good idea to manually create a sytem restore point ......
  • spiney2spiney2 Posts: 27,058
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    ... there are also things called "services" which are basically intermittent background processes but they appear in a different section of task manager ..... skype may have some of these as well as the main process .....
  • d'@ved'@ve Posts: 45,452
    Forum Member
    Of course stopping startup programs from, er, starting up, is easier with Windows 8, they are listed in Task Manager on a separate tab and can be disabled from there. Tells you the startup impact on resources, too. Nice if you have it.
  • JeffG1JeffG1 Posts: 15,243
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    spiney2 wrote: »
    many tasks start when the computer is booted but this is unnecessary. goto windows help and search for "system config" . select "show all". click on link to system configuration. look at startup items and remove those you dont want to autostart when computer boots (be careful not to disable firewall and anti virus!). select "apply" and the computer will restart but with unwanted startups now removed

    Or else just read the last sentence of post #7. :)
  • TrollheartTrollheart Posts: 5,093
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    Siimplest way is to CTRL-ALT-Delete to get to Task Manager, then highlight Skype under the Processes Tab and end the process.
    That'll get rid of it, running or not, for this session, and it will still start-up next time you reboot (unless you do as mentioned above to stop that.

    TBH if you don't use Skype all the time you might as well take it off startup and just fire it up when you need it. Saves resources, and saves faffing about with Task Manager.
    No, it didn't. I know how to end a process. What I was saying was that no matter how many times I highlit it and clicked "end process" it remained there, like it was caught in some sort of loop or something.

    I've decided just to stop using Skype now, moving on to another client. Thanks for all the advice guys.
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