Process Hacker Forums

* Removed Terminator

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2293

Why was the terminator removed? I really liked this feature and it allowed me to kill nearly all processes and now it is gone. Why?

NewVersionTester wrote:

Why was the terminator removed?

"On 64-bit systems almost all of these are useless because they were originally designed to bypass system service hooks (which are no longer possible anyway)."

NewVersionTester wrote:

I really liked this feature and it allowed me to kill nearly all processes and now it is gone.

I'm porting the code into an optional plugin for users who might still need the functionality.

Okay, that's nice.

I successfully used the Terminator under 64-bit Windows 7.
Though, probably the applications being terminated were the 32-bit ones.

Yeah. I also never noticed any problems with it and I also use it on a x64 system for years...

Terminator is useless not because it doesn't work, but because it isn't any more effective than the normal terminate functionality.

Except for corner cases on 64-bit Windows 7 with some AntiVirus programs using Kernel Drivers to prevent termination by normal way. :)

I also used terminator many times and it helped me on 64-bit Windows 7. Maybe it doesn't work every time, but in some cases it really helps. I actually got to know about ProcessHacker thanks to this feature some years ago ;)
The first thought that came to my mind was that the author may have received some pressure from antivirus companies or some other...unfriendly people. I hope it's not like that.

Terminator was one of the best features and the 'clincher' because of which I switched to the Process Hacker from the SysInternals' Process Explorer.
There was an issue with some process that I had not managed to kill with any other method.
That process had been keeping handles to files on a removed external disk, or something like that.
Neither Task Manager kill feature, nor Process Explorer's Kill, nor Process Hacker just Terminate, nor taskkill.exe were able to kill the process.
Only the Terminator helped me to do that, namely, its CH1 method worked (Close the process' handles).
I wouldn't managed to figure out that by myself. Moreover, I can't figure out now, how could I close those handles by myself.
Please, get back the Terminator! :)

Sorry for bad English.

At first i was wondering why the terminator was removed, but after thinking about it, i personally think that it is a good choice. If i remember right, there where some unsafe (kernel) methods that could destabilize/crash the os and that isnt worth terminating a process. Just close all apps and save your data, then do a clean restart of your system. Not worth a crash terminating a process by force.

keremg wrote:

...If i remember right, there where some unsafe (kernel) methods that could destabilize/crash the os and that isnt worth terminating a process.

There was a pretty ListView which had a quite detailed explanation of those methods and their 'dangerousity'. If i remember it right, there was even a confirmation warning MessageBox which popped up if those kernel-methods were selected. And that was pretty much suitable! User had enough warnings.

keremg wrote:

... Just close all apps and save your data, then do a clean restart of your system.

Please excuse me, but are you serious? Then let's not use any termination functionality at all - we'll just restart our system every time something hangs.)) Speaking seriously, sometimes it is unacceptable to reboot the system immediately and the chance to leave it running is worth trying. Not everyone's machine has a browser and a media player as the only running software.

And what's the point then in such advanced tools like Process Hacker (which i like very much by the way =) ? The inexperienced user can do MANY harmful things to his system with either Process Hacker or any other similar tool (or even without any). We can also assume that user can just kill some system process c***s.exe making his Windows go BSOD (or something like that) and so we shouldn't provide any killing feature at all because that is too dangerous. I thought that our tool is designed mainly for those people who know what they are doing. And for those who do not - there were more than enough warnings.

I'm also one of those who had good experience with terminator. It killed some hung processes on 64-bit windows, so I don't understand why it is useless. I also don't remember system crashes accuring with it - maybe just once. And mr. keremg's explanation made me confused.)) We are not noobs after all, we are programmers.

Dear afrikan,

the existence of a terminator isnt bad at all or useless. I didnt say that. There are reasons one can use it or try to ernforce the termination of a "not behaving as expected" process for the price of breaking the system or data. I personally think that a user mode TerminateProcess/ExitProcess or RtlExitUserProcess, Zw/NtTerminateProcess in kernel or whatever is safely "documented" should to the job and if the process wont be terminated by the operating system, then there is a good reason for it (e.g. open handles, hooks, bugs, etc.) and you shouldnt enforce it. Thats what i personally think here. The right way should be to find out WHAT makes the process freeze or stuck and then try to fix the cause. I use process hacker mainly for system/process monitoring/analyzing or objects manipulation/analyze purposes and very rarley for enforcing process termination. If a process is stuck or behaves unexpected, attach a debugger to it and find out why.

K.

I had have some stubborn processes on x64 too that could not be terminated using a right-click --> Terminate on it.
Using "Terminator" the only processes that were not possible to terminate were the ones created by NotMyFault and possibly one...two rare examples when handling my own kernel drivers and those of Anti-Rootkits.
Despite removal of the Terminator we could still employ its functionality ourselves. We can not only un-map memory or re-protect it, but also write garbage in ntdll.dll, install guard pages or close nearly all handles to the process which we'd like to get rid of.

However, sometimes termination is not feasible using manual actions, such injecting a new thread in the process calling in turn NtTerminateProcess, or we just don't want to waste any more time with that process.
That's the reason why I would be quite happy to see this plugin being written and published! =)
Of course, from a malware-removal view the x64 version does not have much if any advantages over doing right click-->Terminate.

Kind regards,
Microwave89

for me Terminator also never worked, but moving it to plugin would be nice for users who need it

+ Vote Up for the plugin ... at least !

Another one bites the dust. Got a letter from micro$hit?

The only thing I used from Terminator is that I could close process cleanly by sending WM_CLOSE without having to open application.

I started process hacker today specifically to terminate a program that I know occasionally has a problem, and I can only shut it down using process hacker's terminator. I let process hacker update itself, and terminator was gone! I was infuriated because I really needed to kill the process and re-open so I could continue, without the annoyance of restarting. Its a bit annoying that it is now gone, it's the main reason I used process hacker :-(

alienmuppet wrote:

I started process hacker today specifically to terminate a program that I know occasionally has a problem, and I can only shut it down using process hacker's terminator. I let process hacker update itself, and terminator was gone! I was infuriated because I really needed to kill the process and re-open so I could continue, without the annoyance of restarting. Its a bit annoying that it is now gone, it's the main reason I used process hacker :-(

Same here! I guess I know not to update on any other pcs.

Hi!
I'm another one who went to Process Hacker with the INTENT of clobbering an annoying process but was daft enough to think of updating before I did so. - I naively hoped there might be a new I might learn more about what was making my bodged up pseudo-driver lock before I killed the renegade thread(s). But no, instead of that, Process Hacker merrily Knackered itself! Now I'll have to find the earlier version and reinstall. Fortunately I always keep historic versions - I learnt that the hard way as Opera slowly discovered the $shite balloon-bloat route to becoming not worth the RAM.

Please Own Up! Who hassled who into crippling it? I mean how many bytes did it save on the final exe? How many millimetres did it shrink the context-click menu? I'm sorry but I don't reckon it was snipped for practical reasons, it was snipped because someone didn't like their pride and joy being killable by a couple of neat tricks, or more to the point it was snipped because someone snipped it on request.

Please please code up the plugin version, the whinger (whoever they are) will probably not notice and whatever pseudo benefits there are to the exe will remain and still those among us who like so many neat tricks from a single interface will be happy again :-)