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I have been looking for a Windows utility like Process Explorer or Process Hacker, but with any or all of these features:

  • Ability to filter processes shown (exclude OR include, either is fine)
  • Ability to quickly view and kill old WINDOWS that haven't been used in a while (not processes, just windows, like open Explorer windows I left open and should close)

I've found some programs like Daphne that can kill a group of programs, but nothing that does exactly as mentioned above.

Any suggestions? Preferably GUI suggestions, but I guess there could be some command line options that work as well.

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Shouldn't the question you should be asking is "Why am I having to kill so many processes in the first place?" Killing processes regularly contributes to the destabilization of your OS. Between starting processes and killing them, killing a processes takes 1000X more work as the OS first has to disentangle the mess of object references and then make sure it isn't clearing anything still in use by another process. Since Windows tends to lean on the safe side, that may still leave artifacts. – surfasb Oct 7 '11 at 22:37
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I found a pretty good solution for this: http://www.ntwind.com/software/vistaswitcher/shortcuts.html

If you install VistaSwitcher, and press Win+F12, you can open your Alt+Tab list. See the shortcuts above. If you press S, you can select a window. Then, if you press X, it kills all selected windows.

  1. Install the freeware Alt+Tab replacement VistaSwitcher
  2. Press Win+F12 for a sticky Alt+Tab window
  3. Press END to go to the bottom of your Alt+Tab list (presumably your oldest windows)
  4. Press S on any windows that are no longer being used
  5. Press X to close the selected windows

This is quicker than a task manager. You don't have to worry about sorting by date, and it only shows windows, not systray programs or background services.

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