WinKill v1.0

By James Bray

 

Introduction

WinKill is a MS Windows equivalent of X-Kill on X-Windows.  It allows you to point at a specified window and either close the window or terminate the underlying process.  In addition windows and tasks can be killed using the shortcut menu.
 

Requirements

Windows 95/98/NT
 

Installation

To install WinKill, first unzip the archive to a suitable location.  'C:\Program Files\WinKill' would be good.  If you are running NT you may wish to move/copy psapi.dll into your 'system32' directory.  If you are running Win95/98 you can delete the 'psapi.dll' file.  WinKill is even more useful if you put a shortcut into the Startup folder in your start menu.
 

Instructions

After the program is started, an 'bomb-like' icon will appear in the system tray.

Left clicking the icon once will allow you to choose a window to close.  After clicking the icon the cursor will change to a cross.  The next window that is chosen will be sent a close command that is equivalent to choosing File->Exit from that program's main menu.  To cancel this operation whilst the cross is displayed, press the right mouse button.

Double clicking the left mouse button on the icon will allow you to kill a task associated with a window.  Again after clicking the icon a cross will be shown.  Clicking on a window will terminate the task attached to that window (also removing the window).  As before pressing the right mouse button whilst the cross cursor is displayed will cancel the operation.

Right clicking the icon will display a shortcut menu.  The first item on the menu is a sub menu labeled 'Close'.  Opening this menu will allow you to select a window to close.  This is equivalent to left clicking the icon.  The second icon on the menu is a sub menu labeled 'Kill'.  Opening this menu displays a list of running tasks to kill.  The third icon is labeled 'Info' and simply displays this HTML page.  The final icon 'Exit' exits the program and removes the icon from the system tray.
 

Disclaimer

This program has been designed to allow any task to be killed.  This includes all system tasks and user interface tasks, such as Explorer.  Obviously killing these tasks *will* hang you're machine, at best.  The author cannot be held responsible for any data lost, or any damage this program causes.

This program is absolutely free.  You may do absolutely what you want with this program.  It can be used commercially with no restrictions.  If you would like the source code then send me an e-mail to the address below.
 

Contacting the author

If you have any suggestions, bugs, comments, abuse, etc., please send them to the address below:

jamesb@zetnet.co.uk

To visit my web site, point your browser at:

       http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/jamesbray/index.html