In Command Prompt (CMD), tasklist and taskkill are essential commands for managing processes on a Windows system. They allow users to monitor, troubleshoot, and terminate processes, which can be useful for improving system performance or resolving issues with unresponsive applications.

tasklist Command

The tasklist command provides a list of all currently running processes, showing important information such as process IDs (PIDs), memory usage, and the status of each process. This command is commonly used for monitoring system activity and identifying processes that may be consuming excessive resources.

Basic Usage

To display a list of all running processes:

tasklist

This command will show a table of processes, including their names, PIDs, session names, and memory usage.

Filtering Output with tasklist

The tasklist command also supports filters to help narrow down the results.

• Filter by Process Name: To display processes of a specific name, use the /fi switch:

  tasklist /fi "imagename eq notepad.exe"

  This will show only the processes with the name notepad.exe.

• Display with Verbose Output: The /v switch adds more detailed information, such as the status and the window title for GUI-based processes:

  tasklist /v

• Show Specific Process Information: You can filter based on the PID or session name using /fi with specific criteria. For example:

  tasklist /fi "pid eq 1234"

  This will show information about the process with the PID of 1234.

Example of tasklist Output

Image Name                     PID Session Name     Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
explorer.exe                   1056 Console                    1   20,000 K
notepad.exe                    1248 Console                    1    5,000 K

This shows the process name, PID, memory usage, and other details.

taskkill Command

The taskkill command is used to terminate a running process by specifying either its process ID (PID) or image name. It is helpful when a process becomes unresponsive and needs to be forcefully terminated.

Basic Usage

To terminate a process using its PID:

taskkill /PID 1234

Replace 1234 with the actual PID of the process you wish to terminate.

Terminate a Process by Name

You can also kill processes by their image name:

taskkill /IM notepad.exe

This will terminate all instances of notepad.exe running on the system.

Forcefully Terminate a Process

The /f option forces the termination of a process, even if it’s not responding. This is useful for unresponsive programs that can’t be closed normally.

taskkill /f /IM notepad.exe

This will forcefully terminate all instances of notepad.exe.

Terminate a Process and Its Child Processes

The /t switch allows you to terminate the specified process and all its child processes. This is useful when a parent process spawns additional background tasks.

taskkill /f /IM notepad.exe /t

This will forcefully kill notepad.exe and any processes that were launched by it.

Example of taskkill Usage

To terminate a specific process with the PID 5678:

taskkill /PID 5678

To forcefully terminate chrome.exe:

taskkill /f /IM chrome.exe