How in the Tech

Quickly closing every single running application

By Adam Myers ⋅ June 11, 2010 ⋅ Tags: Windows

As you are probably aware, Microsoft releases their security and software updates on the second Tuesday of every month – June’s just occurred this week. Almost 15 years ago, Windows was known to require daily, if not more frequent, reboots to maintain any resemblance of stability. Even anti-Windows enthusiasts can admit those days are long gone – since the release of XP SP2 and all subsequent versions of Windows, a PC generally can remain running for quite awhile with no crashes or other annoying issues. Some of us like to think that after a fresh reboot the system is a bit more snappy and responsive but it’s generally proven to not be the case.

The fact of the matter – Windows machines these days typically only need to be rebooted to apply security updates. Even the most security  conscious individual is therefor not rebooting any more often than once a month. With the processing power in even the most basic PC, a month of run-time generally results in more than a handful of applications running at any given time – whether they are used daily or not. For example, I almost always have Chrome and Firefox running together with Microsoft Word and a photo editor and while I use all of them daily, they aren’t all used often enough to warrant them continually open in the background. Yet I do, because I can – and I suspect I’m not the only one. However, when that second Tuesday of the month comes around it can become slightly annoying to close out of every application. Similarly, neither is it illogical for some to close out of all applications at the close of the day. Both trains of thought requires a lot of clicking!

Close All Windows is a free utility from NTWind that fills a niche role, a role you’ve probably surmised by it’s name. The software requires no installation and consists of just a few files including one executable. The executable, when initiated, simply closes out of every single running application on the system. Applications that have unsaved worked will still prompt you to save the changes – Close All Windows isn’t aggressively forceful in it’s closing behavior.

Creating a Desktop Shortcut allows for some additional advanced functionality. By passing a few command line parameters, Close All Windows can exclude certain programs from being closed. This is actually very handy in the office environment where you know each morning will require a smaller subset of applications. Excluding those applications allows for a somewhat clean and fresh start each morning – just click the Close All shortcut as you head out for the day and know that everything will be set come morning!

From a created desktop shortcut, right-click and select Properties. Select the Shortcut tab and at the end of the Target field append -x=”process to exclude.exe”. It’s possible to chain the exclusions by using the | separator like this:

-x=”firefox.exe|outlook.exe|itunes.exe”

Sometimes the best software is the most basic in it’s functionality.

Download Close All Windows