SuperF4 is a free utility that resides in memory and delivers instant, quick termination of apps or processes via hotkey. It is designed to forcibly terminate any running program effectively and instantly, but without notifications or prompts to save your work. This is done by pressing CTRL+ALT+F4 for terminating the active app, while WIN+F4 will allow you to use the mouse to click on any visible Window to terminate that app or process.
This program can provide instant termination of a program or app that may have crashed or frozen on you. It is designed to always be running in the background should the need for it arise, wherein it can kick into action via hotkey.
You might wonder why you may want this since you could always press Alt+F4 or CTRL+ALT+Delete, get to the “Task Manager”, and terminate the app from there. The answer is that when doing it this way the program can refuse to quit; in this case, to quote the developer’s site “Windows essentially only asks the program to quit, and lets it decide for itself what to do”; SuperF4, on the other hand, will force the program to quit. Here are more notes on this program:
- Termination: SuperF4 is designed to terminate any program; note, however, that the terminated program will shut down immediately and will not give the option to save your work.
- Hotkeys: CTRL+ALT+F4 terminates active app;WIN+F4 will allow you to use
click on a visible window to terminate it. You cannot change these hotkeys. - Terminate by clicking on an app: once you press the hotkey (WIN+F4) they cursor will change its appearance to a skull and crossbones icon (see screenshot above). Press ESC if you change your mind and don’t want to terminate anything.
- Size in memory: approx. 7 megs. Which is rather small if you’re wondering.
- System tray icon: can be disabled if you do not want it to show.
The verdict: a very nice program. And while you may not have an immediate use for it when you first use it, you will really appreciate that its there when/if you encounter an obstinate program that previously would have required a reboot.
Check out previously mentioned AltDrag from the same author.
Version Tested: 1.0
Compatibility: WinAll.
Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.15 megs).
focibly?
Stupid leeches! 10 comments and only 1 is real!
@Carbonize: you can always see these typos somehow. Thanks for pointing it out; I corrected.
@Fred: the pingbacks will be seperated from the comments sometimes, um .. this year… I promise
Task killing by hotkey is one of the features built into Hoekey http://www.bcheck.net/apps/ I also use Task Killer http://www.rsdsoft.com/index.php4 (site currently down) and sometimes Taskill http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/ but these last two are visual, i.e. only Hoekey is “kill this task NOW by hotkey”. OTOH Taskill can accept command-line arguments, which is sometimes useful in a scheduler.
This is nice, but when normal killing of process doesn’t work, use this – http://www.diamondcs.com.au/advancedseries/apt.php
Cannot install the program: McAfee antivirus detects superf4.exe as a trojan
Checked 7z and .exe on virustotal.com = clean
But I found a problem in this program. If I close the last window it also will close (kill) my desktop. There is no easy way to bring back my desktop other than a reboot! Have any idea?
Thanks a lot for the info
http://cshared.com/free-tool-to-close-freezedcrashed-program-using-hotkey/
Long time ago I saw a task manager/task killer type of program that was unique– You could select 2 or more things to kill at the same time.
Does anyone remember the name of that program?
Because sometimes viruses or trojans (or otherwise nefarious) have a setup where killing one thing isn’t enough, because another component will just recreate it, and vice versa.
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I have a question about SuperF4: Aren’t there hidden windows? If a window is hidden, how are you going to see it to be able to kill it with SuperF4?
OK, I found what I was talking about before– something that would kill multiple processes at once:
KILLPROCESS from orangelampsoftware . com
Use it in ‘viscious’ mode (preferences) and control-select as many processes as you want to kill. (Because sometimes viruses or trojans just respawn when only one part of it is killed.)
@JK: bring up task manager by pressing ctrl+shift+esc, then “File > “New Task (Run…)”; enter “explorer.exe” and press OK.