One-click closes all your open programs in Windows 10 with Parallels Toolbox Close Apps

Windows users who are diligent about shutting down their open programs and PCs every day often look for the fastest way to quit everything.

If you’re like most Windows users, you likely have several or dozens of programs running at any given time. Manually closing these applications everyday can take up more time than you might like to volunteer toward task management. It becomes irritating when you’ve already mentally quit your task at hand.

Luckily, it’s easier now than ever before to quit all the programs you’re running on Windows 10 with the Parallels Toolbox tool Close Apps.

Close Apps is the best solution for shutting down multiple applications in Windows quickly.

Use this tool to immediately clear up the desktop by closing or minimizing all apps and windows with just one click. Close Apps frees up a lot of time when it comes to shutting down your PC for the day.

Not to mention, you also receive dozens of wildly helpful tools included with Parallels® Toolbox. Our engineers designed Parallels Toolbox as a simple suite for creative individuals, students, small-business owners, chronic multitaskers, IT managers and everyone in between.

Tips and tricks:

• In the preferences for Close Apps, you can choose to conceal apps with the following options: closing the app, minimizing the app or force-closing the app.
• Choose to “hide” your desired app instead of closing, minimizing or force-closing the program.
• Warning: when choosing to force-close a program, all unsaved data is lost.

Parallels Toolbox is our all-in-one solution with over 30 tools for macOS and Windows 10. With just one click, you can save space on your hard drive, create high-quality content, quickly optimize your computer for a presentation and so much more. Our economical suite of tools replaces the need for multiple applications and programs. Try a free 7-day trial of Parallels Toolbox for macOS or Windows 10 from the links below!

Quickly Close Open Windows Using Shortcut Keys

How to type your way out of a mess with Windows keyboard shortcuts

One of the advantages of Microsoft Windows PCs is that you can have many different programs and windows open at the same time. This advantage becomes a disadvantage, however, when you have to close dozens of open windows. Fortunately, you can carry out repetitive actions like closing windows with keyboard shortcuts.

Instructions in this article apply to Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

How to Close Windows With Alt + Spacebar + C

One option for closing windows with keyboard shortcuts is as follows:

Open the window that you would like to close using your mouse.

Press and hold down the Alt key, then press the Spacebar to reveal the right-click context menu at the top of the program window you’re trying to close.

Release both keys and press the letter C. This will cause the window to close.

If you can execute this sequence using one hand while the other hand controls the mouse, you’ll be able to close roughly a dozen windows in about as many seconds.

How to Close Windows With Fn + Alt + F4

Another option is to select the window you want to close and then press Fn+Alt+F4. You’ll probably need two hands for this one.

Although the shortcut is officially listed as Alt+F4, you must hold down the Function (Fn) key for it to work.

How to Close Tabs With CTRL + W

The Ctrl+W shortcut only closes the current file you’re working on, but it leaves the program open. This feature can be handy if you want to leave the desktop program open but get rid of all the files you’re working on in quick succession.

Ctrl+W works in most browsers too, so you can close the current tab you’re looking at without taking your hands off the keyboard. If you use Ctrl+W when only one browser tab is open, then the program window will close.

How to Select Open Windows With Alt + Tab

It’s possible to select an open window without using the mouse. Press Alt+Tab to cycle through your open windows. Use this shortcut in conjunction with the other shortcuts to close all open windows without taking your hands off the keyboard.

How to See Your Desktop With Windows Key + D

Sometimes you don’t actually want to close all those windows; what you really want to do is just look at your desktop. To quickly access your desktop, press the Windows Key+D. Use the same shortcut to bring back all your windows.

If you are running Windows 7 or later, there are multiple ways to access your Windows desktop.

How to Close a Group of Windows With the Mouse

When you have numerous files open in the same program, like a bunch of emails in Outlook, Word files, or several spreadsheets in Excel, you can close all of them at once using the mouse. Right-click the program in the Windows taskbar and select Close all windows (or Close Group in older versions of Windows).

Close All Windows 4.8

Close All Windows – это просто незаменимое приложение, которое способно решить очень много важных технических проблем. Главная функция софта – это быстрое закрытие всех программ и файлов, которые в момент работы запущены в операционной системе. Всего лишь одной кнопкой можно завершить все процессы, что значительно экономит время человека.

Очень часто пользователи сталкиваются с такими проблемами, когда зависают различные программы или игры. Порой в таких ситуациях не помогают даже комбинации на клавиатуре и стандартные инструменты Windows. Поэтому в данной ситуации очень сильно выручит этот цифровой продукт.

Пароль ко всем архивам: 1progs

Для выполнения своей работы достаточно запустить утилиту, выставить необходимую горячую клавишу, и свернуть приложение в системный трей. Дополнительно так же можно будет выставить параметры автозагрузки, либо режим работы с отдельными программами.

• Максимально удобный и эффективный процесс работы;
• Широкий набор инструментов;
• Автоматический режим работы;
• Не снижает производительность системы;

Скачать Close All Windows вы можете на нашем сайте, перейдя по ссылке, которая находится на активной странице.

Битая ссылка или обновилась версия программы? Напишите об этом в комментариях, обязательно обновим!

Если не подходит пароль к архиву или после извлечения не все файлы в архиве — смотрите раздел Помощь

Аналоги программы

Похожие программы смотрите в наших подборках программ

How to close all open windows at once?

How do I close all opened windows at once?

12 Answers 12

All answers I could quickly find on this topic involve either the tip Molly gave or using an application (or coding it yourself). For example (I haven’t tried this), Close All Windows.

Also, by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc you get the Windows Task Manager, where you can see all running applications at once (among other things), select them, and End Task them.

I like to see my open windows ungrouped, but realized that this i.e. closing multiple windows at once was a problem with such a setting. A less time-taking method would be to use the command line like this :

And then restart explorer using :

Caution : This will cause processes like file copying on the default Windows interface to abort.

Simultaneously close all open windows:

1. While pressing the Ctrl key, successively click each of the task icons on the taskbar.
2. Right-click the last task icon, and choose Close Group.

If you only want to minimize the windows, use the ‘Show Desktop’ shorcut.

I usually (yes, this happens a lot to me..) just press Alt key and then go crazy on the F4 key until everything is shut down. Not one click, but it’s pretty fast. Or, depending on your system, reboot.. Don’t forget to save anything.

Or maybe you could simply switch users to continue your work without all these tabs. Then when you’re down, shutting down the computer will kill all the processes for the first user.

Not the best solutions, I just thought Id give this one a try.

It’s not a one-click solution but it is the fastest I know with my Windows 7 Pro

1. Open taskbar properties (right click > properties) or (Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Taskbar and Start Menu)
2. Select «Group similar taskbar buttons» = «Group similar taskbar buttons», and click OK
3. Your windows are group, right-click and select «Close all windows»
4. Go back to taskbar properties to restore you old settings

After doing Ctrl-Shift-Esc, go to applications. Then, press shift down and end task, all of them will end (You might get a confirmation message or something depending on the program).

Sometimes, even when you close a program, the processes of the program (The biggest example is an unclosed connection to a local file) may still be on your computer. Most of the time, these processes are mainly overlooked by the owner software because they use almost no space. However, if you still want to end them, just to be meticulous, go to processes and you’ll have to end them one by one.

Close programs from the command line (Windows)

What is the proper way to close/exit programs from command line, similar to pressing the «X» close button in the corner of the window?

Im trying to close chrome under 3 different versions of windows: win7 ultimate, win7 home, winXP

Under Ultimate and XP: TSKILL chrome

Under Home: TASKKILL /IM chrome.exe

(It closes chrome, no cmd errors,
but chrome error restore when relaunch it)

TASKKILL /IM chrome.exe :

(It closes chrome, no chrome errors when relaunch it,
but errors in cmd: «impossible to terminate child processes(about 4-5), only by force with /F «)

Should I ignore cmd child errors if on relaunch chrome show me no errors?

5 Answers 5

The proper way to close/exit a program ultimately depends upon the software. However, generally the best practice is for Windows programs to close whenever they receive the WM_CLOSE message. Properly releasing memory and closing handles. There are other messages that can signal the close of the application, but it is up to the author of the software how each message is handled.

taskkill sends the WM_CLOSE message and it is then up to the application whether to properly close. You may also want to use the /T option to also signal child processes.

Only use the /F option if you want to force the termination of the process.

Other options would include sending the Alt+F4 keys, using PowerShell, or 3rd party applications.

Update to Updated Question

Ignore, the errors. Chrome generates many processes. The errors are caused when an process does not acknowledge the WM_CLOSE message that TASKKILL sends. Only processes with a message loop will be able to receive the message, therefore, the processes that do not have a message loop will generate that error. Most likely, these processes are the chrome extensions and plugins.

To hide the errors capture the output

Summary: TASKKILL is the proper way via command line to close applications per its WM_CLOSE implementation and the Microsoft KB that I linked.

It has «closeprocess» command which is designed to close processes gracefully. As per its document, it does not terminate apps but sends WM_CLOSE to all top-level windows of the target process.

If this doesn’t work, I bet your application has an unusual cleanup procedure. I would like to see what happens inside so please let me know what your target application is.

The answer to that question can be found here (Microsoft link).

You can send WM_CLOSE messages to any window you wish to close. Many windows handle WM_CLOSE to prompt the user to save documents.

A tool that does this correctly is @Kill . Look also SendMsg.

I do not know how to do this in batch, but you could use the vbscript for this. Simulating the Alt + F4 keys (equates to signal WM_CLOSE ).

Run and look at the behavior of this script below.

Here is the list key names for SendKeys.

When you run the script, the notepad is open, some words are written and then a signal to close the program is delivered, see picture below.

Additional Questions

Can I start a program minimized, or background with vbscript?

Yes. Use the following code:

For more information check the Run Method .

Can chrome go to some url in vbscript?

If chrome is the default, use:

Is there a way to bring focus to specific application (chrome.exe)?

I want to send alt+f4 ONLY to chrome, independently of i’m doing with other windows.

The following code works on Windows 8.

There are some command-line utilities that can send a suitable WM_SYSCOMMAND message (with SC_CLOSE as the command) to a program’s top-level window. I’m sure that at least one will be mentioned shortly. (Then someone will mention AutoIt. Then there’ll be an answer showing how to do it with PowerShell and CloseMainWindow() .)

The command-line utility that comes as a built-in command in JP Software’s TCC, a command interpreter and command script processor for Windows, is called TASKEND .

Alright, Not going to lie. I saw this on stackoverflow and thought it was a challenging question. Soooo I just spent the last 2 hours writing some code. And here it is.

After following the steps below, you can type «TaskClose notepad.exe» after hitting «Start» and it will auto save all undocumented notepad files into desktop. It will auto-close chrome.exe and save the restoration settings.

You can add and remove additional settings for other applications under the if conditions. For instance:

The vbs and batch files performs the following procedures:

• Collects the executable.
• Queries the executable application names off of the tasklist.
• Performs an «Alt+TAB(x)» procedure until it has verified the window is open.
• Then Executes the rolling commands whether it be «Alt+F4» or even in extreme cases
• Alt+F4
• Activate Save
• AutoIncrememnt Filename
• Exit application.

ReturnAppList.bat : install in «C:\windows\system32\»

TaskClose.bat : install in «C:\windows\system32\» AND «C:\Users\YourUserName\»

TaskClose.vbs : install in «C:\windows\system32\»

This was alot of fun to write and I’m more happy about finishing it than actually showing the answer. Have a great week!