How to close multiple tasks in Task Manager

Unfortunately, the Windows Task Manager does have any keyboard shortcuts or other methods of selecting multiple tasks at once to close. However, using the Windows taskkill command lets you close multiple programs at once. For example, let's assume a program has froze, or another problem with the computer caused the same program to be opened multiple times. Follow these steps to close the program from the command line without having to reboot the computer.

1. Open the Windows command line.
2. From the command line, use the tasklist command to see all active tasks running on the computer.
3. Once you've determine the program you want to close type the following command, substituting "calc.exe" for the name of the file you want to close.

taskkill /f /im calc.exe

If executed successfully, you'll see each of the terminated processes, similar to the following text.

SUCCESS: The process "calc.exe" with PID 1998744 has been terminated.
SUCCESS: The process "calc.exe" with PID 1995708 has been terminated.
SUCCESS: The process "calc.exe" with PID 1995032 has been terminated.
SUCCESS: The process "calc.exe" with PID 1998700 has been terminated.
SUCCESS: The process "calc.exe" with PID 1998812 has been terminated.