The basics of the Ctrl-Alt-Del "Close Programs" box

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This question was answered on June 4, 2001. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

Before I explain the encrypted abbreviations, let’s review the reasons and proper procedure for using this process.

Closing programs that are running in the background can have a dramatic effect on how your computer performs. In many cases, it is necessary to do so in order to run utilities such as “Defrag” and “Scandisk” or to install a new program without errors.

The “3-finger salute” as we geeks like to call it (hold down the Ctrl, Alt & Del buttons in that order) will open a “Close Program” window that will list everything that is currently running on your computer. By highlighting an item and pressing the “End Task” button, you can temporarily remove the program from active memory. It will, however, be reloaded the next time you start your computer

But, before you use that method to shutdown programs, it is wise to use the traditional methods first. Start by closing visible programs in the traditional way. (Click on the “X” in the top right corner or click on the File menu then select Exit.)

For utilities and other programs that are running in the background, many of them can be shutdown from the “Systray”, which is located at the bottom right corner of the screen, next to the clock. Any of the icons that appear to the left of the clock can generally be right-clicked to expose a dialog box that gives you the option of exiting or terminating the program.

Only after you have performed those steps would I recommend that you use the 3-finger salute to close programs.

The exact items that appear in the Close Programs window will depend upon what you have loaded in your computer. For instance, the “Navapw32” entry is from Norton’s Anti-Virus program. The “iowatch” is from Iomega’s Zip drive utilities.

About the only thing on your list that most every user is likely to see is the “rundll” entry, which is a Windows internal program that runs Dynamic Link Library files. *.dll files are used by virtually every program that is executed on your computer, which is why you are likely to see it listed.

If you are trying to temporarily put your system at it’s bear minimum for maintenance purposes, you can remove everything except the “Explorer” and “Systray” entries.

Some of the programs may not shutdown the first time that you attempt to close them, which requires you to repeat the process for those entries to be unloaded. Remember, any hardware or software that relies on these program will not function properly until you restart your machine.

If you really want to know the associated program for each of the entries in the Close Program window, try typing each entry into your favorite search engine.

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