What is the PowerShell command for stopping a process?

1 The Stop-Process cmdlet

The PowerShell command for stopping a process is the Stop-Process cmdlet. This cmdlet takes one or more process IDs or names as input, and terminates them. You can use the -Id or -Name parameters to specify the process IDs or names, respectively. For example, to stop the process with the ID 1234, you can run: Stop-Process -Id 1234 Or, to stop the process named Notepad, you can run: Stop-Process -Name Notepad You can also use wildcards to match multiple processes by name. For example, to stop all processes that start with Chrome, you can run: Stop-Process -Name Chrome*

4 The -WhatIf and -Confirm parameters

If you are not sure whether you want to stop a process, or you want to verify your input before executing the command, you can use the -WhatIf and -Confirm parameters. The -WhatIf parameter shows what would happen if you run the Stop-Process cmdlet, without actually stopping any process. The -Confirm parameter prompts you for confirmation before stopping each process. For example, to see what would happen if you stop all processes that end with exe, you can run: Stop-Process -Name *exe -WhatIf Or, to confirm before stopping each process that contains the word Word, you can run: Stop-Process -Name *Word* -Confirm These parameters are useful for testing and debugging your commands, or for avoiding accidental mistakes.

5 The Get-Process cmdlet

If you don't know the process ID or name that you want to stop, you can use the Get-Process cmdlet to list the processes that are running on your system or a remote computer. The Get-Process cmdlet returns a System.Diagnostics.Process object for each process, which you can filter, sort, or select by various properties. For example, to list the processes that are using more than 100 MB of memory, you can run: Get-Process | Where-Object {$_.WorkingSet -gt 100MB} Or, to list the processes that are running on a remote computer named Server1, you can run: Get-Process -ComputerName Server1 You can also pipe the output of the Get-Process cmdlet to the Stop-Process cmdlet, to stop the processes that match your criteria. For example, to stop all processes that are using more than 500 MB of memory, you can run: Get-Process | Where-Object {$_.WorkingSet -gt 500MB} | Stop-Process

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?