Program to close background tasks?

When I go to play a game, I like to turn off the majority of my background tasks. To do so, I CTRL+ALT+DEL and "End Process" the ones I don't want.

Is there a program that can do this, something that will turn off any non-essential background tasks in one click?

 

I've always used a little utility called EndItAll, which is available in two versions.

v1 has a much cleaner interface than v2, which seems too much like Task Manager.

You can protect anything you don't want to close, and it has a help file that's actually helpful. It won't end your programs with just one click, but it's much faster and easier than using Task Manager.

 

Hi JSS3rd,

This sounds like something I could use. Will v1 work on XP? Also, can you tell me, what processes are absolutely needed to run XP so I can leave these alone and not shut them down.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Ann

 

Hi Ann,

EndItAll v1 works perfectly with XP ... I've been using it since before I got XP five years ago. I learned about v2 only this morning, took a look at it, didn't like what I saw, and immediately reverted to v1.

I can't really answer your second question because, unlike Task Manager, EndItAll v1 doesn't list all running processes. In fact, other than Windows Explorer, it doesn't list any processes associated with the XP OS, but Explorer is automatically protected, as it EndItAll, itself. You'll see what I mean if you install it and run it.

After running it, read the help file before doing anything else if you have any concerns ... you can exit the program without closing any programs at all.

 

Hi Jim,

Still one of my old standbys from PC Mag days.

Neil Rubenking did a good job

Regards - Charles

 

JSS3rd -

Thank you for your quick reply. I guess I will have to try it to see.

If my memory serves me correctly, on my W98 machine, there were only two items that had to be running and everything else could be disabled. In XP, I have no idea what is absolutely necessary to run.

Thanks a bunch.

 

Yes, he did. I was surprised at just how many of his little utilities I had downloaded and saved before PC Mag made their downloads library a subscription service.

 

Thank you for the reply and the link to the website.

I downloaded v1, installed and ran it, and it works perfectly. Protected a few processes I don't want closed, and it worked fine. It seems to cause my mouse cursor to randomly move across the screen under XP Pro, but this stops as soon as the processes are stopped.

Thanks again.

 

I forgot to mention that little quirk under XP (it didn't happen with Win9x). It also leaves me with several error messages to close but, otherwise, it works perfectly.

 

Forgot to mention - EndItAll works on Vista.

Regards - Charles