Killing Unwanted Processes

Is there a way to (in windows XP) set something up so that any time a certain program ends up in 'processes' in task manager that it gets ended as soon as it tries to run? For instance if dragonsdemesne.exe kept showing up in 'processes' in task manager, is there a way to tell xp that any time it finds dragonsdemesne.exe running that it should be ended immediately?

I realize there are other things that can be done in this situation, like uninstalling dragonsdemesne.exe; however, that's not what my question is :p

Considering that this could easily be done, maybe someone already did a program to do just that, I am going to do some searches.

You can stop processes from loading by doing the following:

Go to start > Run > Type msconfig > check the services and startup tabs

Other than that there are many start-up programs that take control of what is started and even in what order they are started...Google search will find them.

reply to post by kinglizard


Okay, I'll try that, thanks.

edit: Yeah, that's exactly what I needed. Thanks again!

[edit on 16-9-2009 by DragonsDemesne]

This is a topic that interests me. In doing some research I learned that there are sometimes processes working in the backround that don't show up in task manager. Tracking these things down is a nontrivial task. There are websites that will help you do it. Google things like: managing xp startup, stopping hidden processes in xp, etc. Good luck.

There are also many apps, one of them is Orange Lamp Software Solution ™ KillProcess (freeware)

KillProcess is an application assassin of the extreme kind.It can terminate almost any process on a Windows machine, including any service and process running in the system. Even protected Microsoft system processes can be terminated. All of this can be done in the matter of milliseconds. The speed that KillProcess can kill your applications with is determined by your computer speed and is not restricted by any other settings within the OS itself. KillProcess is way more powerful than the Task Manager in other terms than speed. It can kill multiple processes, either by multi-select or by clever use of ?kill lists?. Using these techniques it is possible to ?batch? terminate processes, quickly and swiftly, with a click of a button. KillProcess can also scan the running processes on the computer, and kill them on sight, much like an anti-spyware application would. In KillProcess however you are in charge of which applications should be allowed to run or not ? and that applies to the computer as long as you say so. To determine what processes that should be allowed to run or not, powerful process information can be retrieved from each of the processes that are running in the system. This makes it much easier to figure out which processes belongs to a specific application, for instance identifying all of the processes and services belonging to Lotus Notes. All of this can make life a lot easier for many system administrators and software developers out there, that constantly keep terminating the same processes over and over again. It is also useful for ordinary people because it makes it possible to terminate services that normally run automatically on their computers, whenever their administrator wants it to, and not when they want it to.

www.filebuzz.com...

Download

Screenshot

From the menu "File" you can create, edit and delete Kill Lists, it has been useful to me, with some annoying processes that weren't visible in the process tab in the task manager nor in the startup list under System Configuration Utility (msconfig).