Restarting you system after a program locks-up
Ever been working on your computer and it locks or freezes up on you when you
are working? I find that my system likes to do so at the most inconvenient
times. I have gotten into the practice of working for ten or fifteen minutes and
then save what I have done to the hard drive disk.
Some programs allow you to automatically save this information, other
application programs do not have this feature, so I do it manually. By saving
your work frequently, you help avoid the problem of lost information when the
system does lock or freeze up.
When and I do mean when, the application freezes up, you most likely have lost
whatever you have been doing since your last save, some application programs
will try and save the information for you, but a lot of times it is lost. What
to do when it does freeze up you ask?
Well if the program does not respond to commands, a message window will sometime
come up letting you know there was a fault and the application will be turned
off. If the program does not respond to any mouse clicks, and has frozen up, do
not despair, you can turn the program off by using the control + Alt + Delete
keys at the same time.
In Windows XP, by right clicking on the tool bar at the bottom will give a pop
up window to do the same thing. This action will bring up the Task Manager
window. In this window you can see what application programs are currently
running. As well it may give a message to let you know if it is working or not
responding.
The program that has locked up should be displayed in this window. Left click on
it once to high light it. At the bottom you will see the button End Task, by
clicking on it the task will be turn off. You will have to wait until a
confirmation window pops up to end that task.
Sometime this does not work, and you may have to resort to a more drastic
measure, by hitting the control + Alt + Delete keys a few times, will re-boot
your machine. This is a warm boot, and it the preferred way to re-start your
system in emergencies.
Sometimes this will not work either, well as the last resort, turn the power off
the systems, this is. a cold boot. Do this only when the above does not work. It
is hard on the system, files can become corrupted and the system will have to do
a complete check on start up when it is restarted. My advice, is to save, save
and save. It will save you time in the long run.
