What to do when Windows program stops responding?

A computer that stops responding or freezes can be caused by many different problems. For example, a software or hardware conflict, lack of system resources, a bug, or a software or driver error can cause Windows to stop responding.

What to do when a program stops responding

To recover, press the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys on your keyboard to open the Close Program or Task Manager window. Once open, highlight the program that is not responding and click the End Task button to terminate the program. If another window opens, click the End Task button again to confirm stopping that program.

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If the computer doesn’t respond to Ctrl+Alt+Del, it may be deadlocked, contact PC Expert Services to help you to resolve the computer issue.

After the program is end tasked and no longer shows up in the Task Manager, you can try opening the program again to see if it works properly. If you continue to experience issues with that program, restart your computer and then open the program again to see if the issue is now resolved.

If after restarting your computer, the program continues to stop responding, check for available updates or patches for the program on the developer’s website that may address the problem.

If no updates or patches are available for the program and the computer is only having problems with that one program, uninstall the program. After un-installation is complete, restart the computer, and then install the program again. Test the program again to see if it works correctly now and no longer stops responding.

If the problems persist, contact PC Expert Services in Irvine to fix the issue with the program. If the computer is freezing in multiple programs, we suggest to contact PC Expert Services in Irvine for expert troubleshooting to help stop this issue from occurring.

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It is important to realize that when a program stops responding, any work that has not been saved will be lost when end tasking a program.