Task Manager in Win8 Unresponsive

[Marlfox]

Task Manager in Win8 "Ineffective"

I'm having an issue with the task manager in Windows 8 Pro, it seems like an under-powered version compared to previous task managers in that I can not force close unresponsive programs. The particular issue that I am having at the moment is Guild Wars 2 will crash on occasion and in the past I could just open task manager and force close whatever program I want. At present when I do this I can see the task manager but the cursor from the game overlays the entire screen and I can not click on any of the programs listed in the task manager, I can only click on the taskbar; right-clicking and closing the program (guild wars 2) does not work either. Using my keyboard to scroll through the task manager and then attempt to force close that way also appears to be ineffective (and also annoying). It's nice to know Task Manager is still responsive but it seems to take lower priority than an unresponsive program hanging the system.

Right now my only solution is to log out and back in. Help?

 

[Tsumi]

If you cannot click on the task manager, you probably need to change a setting to force it to stay on top of other windows.

Not sure where that option is, I'm not at my Windows 8 computer at the moment.

 

[Eulogy]

Yup, force the setting "Always on top" in task manager. I don't know if that'll resolve your issue, but that's one step I'd take to try. I personally don't have this issue at all so I can't help much more than that at this point.

 

[Tawnos]

Ctrl alt del
alt t
shift tab
keyboard right to details
tab
g
if needed, keyboard down to highlight "guildwars2.exe" or whatever the exe is
del
enter

 

[Marlfox]

Thank you all for the replies! I never even thought to look for an "always on top" option

 

[Tsumi]

Thank you all for the replies! I never even thought to look for an "always on top" option

Yeah, Windows XP had it on by default I believe, while Vista, 7, and 8 were all turned off by default.