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Did your PC or laptop stop working entirely? Is the mouse cursor stuck in place? Did a program have a critical error and now you are stuck? In this post we will talk about how to unfreeze your PC to get it back in action quickly.
Task manager
The first thing we will do is enter the task manager.
To do this press either ctrl, shift, escape. Alternatively you can also press ctrl, alt, delete, or right click on the task bar, then select task manager.
Here we can select the program that is frozen or unresponsive and then press end task.
Let’s use Google Chrome in our example image.
Here we would select Google Chrome, and hit the end task button on the top right. If still on Windows 10 the button will be on the bottom right.
If you do not find it in the Apps section, check the background processes and see if anything related to the error is still running.
Windows Issues
If there is an issue specifically with Windows itself, you can also restart Windows Explorer. This will refresh the OS and potentially fix any errors you are having. This will be further down in the processes section.
If this doesn’t fix your error within Windows. You can run the Command Prompt with admin privileges, and type sfc /scannow and then press enter. Make sure to keep it all lowercase.
“SFC” stands for System File Checker. This tool attempts to scan and repair any corrupt Windows Files.
If that doesn’t work you can also try DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth. This is similar to the SFC, but simply works on a different level. Both are made to fix Windows corruption.
Again these commands are case sensitive so type it exactly as it is here. To make it easy just copy and paste what is bolded here.
If you suspect a program is the culprit, try repairing or reinstalling it if the issue persists.
Last resort
Lastly, if you can’t access the task manager or anything at all you may need to hard restart the PC by holding down the power button.
Unfortunately, doing this could cause you to lose some work. Be sure to save regularly to avoid this from happening. Especially if your computer is prone to freezing.
Check out this Hp Article for much more in depth information about freezing computers.
If you have questions about how to unfreeze your PC, or our other services, please call or email. We’re happy to assist you! Feel free to use our contact form to send us a message. Thank you!
