How to Terminate Full Screen Game when Hanged

[unleashed]

One Day i was really fed up of my Half-Life 2 getting hanged again and again so i decided to work out a solution for it.

I’ve tried pressing Alt+Tab to switch between Windows, Alt+F4 to close the active program, Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Windows Task Manager, Ctrl+Alt+Del to launch Windows Security dialog box, but NOTHING worked! The only way is to hard reboot the computer by pressing the reset button in my computer case. Hard resetting a computer is never good because it can damage the hard drive and cause data corruption.


Now I’ve figured a way to automatically terminate the game by pressing a shortcut key when it hangs.

Actually it is pretty simple and doesn’t require any advance level of computer knowledge. First you need to know what is the process name used by the game. Let’s take Half-Life 2 as an example. You can check the process name for the game by right clicking the Half Life shortcut and select Properties. Go to the Shortcut tab to view the Target.



Now you need to create a batch file that will kill the hl2.exe process when you simultaneously hit a combination of shortcut keys. Open Notepad (Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad), and type the command line shown below.

taskkill /IM hl2.exe

You should replace the hl2.exe with the target of your game that you want to kill. Save the text file as killhf.bat or whatever you want to call it as long as the extension is .bat and not .txt. When you run the killhf.bat file, it should be able to close the game. Now we will assign a shortcut key to run the batch file.

Right click the killhf.bat file and select “Create Shortcut”. A new file named “Shortcut to killhf.bat” will appear. Right click at “Shortcut to killcss.bat” file and select Properties. Click at the Shortcut Key blank area and type any key of your choice. If you type the letter “L”, it will automatically assign Ctrl + Alt + L as the shortcut key to run the killcss.bat file.



One very more important rule is that the .bat file MUST be placed at desktop for the shortcut key to take effect.

When the game hangs in future, I just need to hit Ctrl + Alt + L key to kill the game so I can restart the game without hard resetting my computer.

A Thx/Rep Will Be Appreciated !

[David]

Wow... this is great .. I actually didn't know this and this could be a very valuable tool not just for gaming

[unleashed]

Thanks for your great comment. However, I don't suggest to use this much often as it may harm your virtual memory.

[David]

How would it go about doing that? .... I would only see it harming the program?

[unleashed]

Well, it would use more memory to terminate the full screen. So the cpu usage would increase ultimately harming your virtual memory.

[David]

I suppose so but doesn't it just use physical memory and not virtual? you can replace ram and such so yeah it could/would still hurt it but it is ultimately fixable at a fairly low price... ?

[unleashed]

Well it's low but then repeated problems might lead to serious damage . It would cost your pc as well as your pocket.

[David]

Grrr... ok then ... keep it to limited use .. .hopefully your screen freezing doesn't happen much either lol

That may also have an effect on your monitor?

[unleashed]

Well, I don't think it would affect the monitor. Never heard it affecting the monitor indeed.