Question

Is there a program or utility to monitor the running process and automatically kill specific processes? My work laptop has a whole bunch of useless crap that I cannot uninstall. Some of these processes keeps popping a specific intervals and consume tons of cpu and make my laptop useless. I always have to manually kill these processes which is annoying. I can't uninstall these otherwise they will automatically reinstall.

Answer 1

AnVir Task Manager

Freeware process and startup manager. Remove spyware and optimize performance. Monitor and manage processes, services, internet connections, DLLs, drivers. Descriptions for startup programs and all Windows services. Alerts on new startups.

Icons in tray for CPU usage and disk load. Quick access to last launched programs in tray. Hide windows to system tray.

Automatically change process priority, permanently block undesired processes. Furthermore, comes with an attractive user interface.

Advanced startup manager allows you to: · Get full list of applications running automatically on Windows startup including all hidden applications. · Get all additional information about startup applications. · Disable/enable, add/delete, edit startup entries. · Stop or run once again startup application.

Startup guard allows you to: · See alert when any new application adds itself to startup. · Forbid some applications to be added to startup. · See alert when Internet Explorer home page was changed.

Process manager allows you to: · Get full information about all processes: CPU and memory usage, executable name with full path, priority, work time, user name. · Get executable file properties, icon and version information. · Stop many processes with one click. · Change process priorities.

Tray icons allows you to: · Get current information about CPU usage including list of most active programs. · Get current information about HDD usage. Protection against viruses includes: · Detection and destruction of most propagated viruses. · Virus database update. · Minimum usage of system resources.

A free and portable version can be downloaded here.

however, you may consider the Pro version, to permanently block undesired processes:

create a 'black list' of processes that are automatically terminated immediately after these processes start. Add to this list annoying and undesired processes that are started automatically without your will.

Anvir Task Manager Pro is shareware, try before you buy.

Answer 2

You should try Sysinternals Process Explorer from Microsoft TechNet.

Answer 3

If you know Microsoft Developer Tools, you can use PSAPI (Process status API) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684884%28VS.85%29.aspx to write nifty utility to do the things you want.

Answer 4

you can make a vbscript, (or batch), then run as scheduled task,eg

Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments
strProcess = objArgs(0)
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colProcesses = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name ='" & strProcess & "'")

If colProcesses.Count = 0 Then
    Wscript.Echo strProcess & " is not running."
Else
    Wscript.Echo strProcess & " is running."
    'Kill the process
    For Each objProcess in colProcesses
        objProcess.Terminate()
    Next

End If

save the above as terminate.vbs and put this as schedule task

cscript /nologo terminate.vbs "sleep.exe"

Answer 5

Try attaching a debugger to the process and break. It shouldn't pop up anymore (since it's still running), but it shouldn't bother you anymore either (from the break). Apparently one of my co-workers used to do this to avoid automatic reboots after installing updates.

Answer 6

This VB script worked perfectly for me - thanks! I configured a scheduled task each 30 min to kill a process that was respawning here.