Windows 11 is getting a quicker way to kill an unresponsive app

Using a simple right-click on the taskbar, which seems a much better way of dealing with misbehaving apps than having to go through the Task Manager.

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Windows 11 could soon offer users a much more convenient and swifter way to close an app that has become unresponsive.

Normally when an app stops working and becomes non-functional, the standard way to close it down is to go to the Task Manager.

However, in a hidden change to Windows 11 (still in testing) spotted by leaker @PhantomOfEarth and highlighted on Twitter, it seems that Microsoft is going to allow for processes to be killed via the taskbar.

All the user will need to do is right-click on the unresponsive app in the taskbar, and in the menu that pops up there'll be an 'End task' option.

You'll be able to deal with a problematic app in two clicks, then, directly on the desktop. As opposed to having to open Task Manager - which can take a little time to appear - and then hunt through the list of running processes to find the app you need to shut down, click on it, and then click 'End task.'

Note that this functionality is still in testing, so it may not see the light of day, as not everything in preview builds makes the cut for the release version of Windows 11. In this case, though, we don't see why it wouldn't - and indeed we can't think why Microsoft hasn't added this feature before now. Still, better late than never.

The leaker discovered the hidden option using ViVeTool, a Windows configuration utility that is handy for hunting out these kinds of potentially incoming features. At the moment, the option doesn't yet work, but that's not surprising really given that it's hidden away.

Hopefully it'll be fully enabled soon enough, and we'll see the new 'End task' option accessible via the taskbar in a preview build in the near future. Elsewhere in Windows 11, with the latest preview version, Microsoft has been busy making a bunch of changes to snap layouts.

NEWS SOURCES:twitter.com, microsoft.com

Darren has written for numerous magazines and websites in the technology world for almost 30 years, including TechRadar, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Computeractive, and many more. He worked on his first magazine (PC Home) long before Google and most of the rest of the web existed. In his spare time, he can be found gaming, going to the gym, and writing books (his debut novel – ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ – was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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