The Three Finger Salute...

The Three Finger Salute (Ctrl+Alt+Delete)
By: Scott Hendison � Published: July 2000

Let's face it. Computers crash. Frequently. Every time you get an error message, that's a crash. Every little red X that says "illegal operation" or "blah blah has caused an invalid page fault" etc. is really just a Windows crash.

Don't be fooled. Nobody really knows what those messages mean. Sure, if you know what you're doing you can sometimes push the "details" button in the message window. From there you can occasionally get a vague idea of what's crashed and why, but the bottom line is you just have to start over. For ease of understanding, those messages should really just say, "Windows crashed. Save your work (if you can), then reboot your computer."

Sometimes though, you won't even get an error message. Your web browser will just stop responding. Things will just freeze up. Sometimes your mouse will keep moving the cursor, but it won't click anything. Sometimes you can click on things, but Windows won't do anything. Sometimes your cursor will even disappear completely, leaving you feeling helpless.

When that happens, give your computer the Three Finger Salute: Press and hold the Ctrl and Alt keys, then press the Delete key once. This will bring up a window called the Close Program dialog box. At that point, you will see a list of all the programs that are currently running on your computer. If you're lucky, one will say "(not responding)" after it. That would be the crashed program. If this is the case, you can highlight the offender, and click the "End Task" button. Usually, the program will then close, putting you back in business.

Sometimes you have to "End Task" on the same program as many as three times to get it to close, but once it does, you should then be able to reboot your system as usual and get back to normal.

Don't press Ctrl - Alt - Del a second time while your "Close Program" dialog box is open or your computer will reboot. If you have no other option for restarting your computer though, then pressing Ctrl - Alt - Del twice is a better option than just pushing your reset or power button. There will always be a warning message visible so you can't accidentally forget that this will happen.

As far as the programs go that are listed in your "Close Program" box, you will always see a couple, even when you have nothing running on your computer. One is "Explorer" and the other is "Systray". These two should never be closed. Explorer (not to be confused with Internet Explorer) is really just your desktop software that allows you to see all of your icons. "Systray" is the little area at the bottom right of your computer by your clock.

Your "Systray" or System Tray will show you the icons of some (not all) of the programs that are running on you computer, and can sometimes give you a clue as to what is causing your crash. Over time you may notice that two programs run simultaneously will cause a crash, but when run individually, they work fine.

Try to keep your Systray free of programs that start up when your computer boots. Frequently appearing here, and sometimes causing problems are, an AOL icon, a Real Player icon, or Scanner software icons.

If you press Ctrl - Alt - Del when you think nothing is open on your computer, you may be surprised at how many things are listed there. Each one is using some of your computers valuable resources. There are several ways to keep these programs out of your Windows startup, and out of your "Close Program" dialog box, and some of them are explained in our February 1999 article called "Speed it up Buddy". (Click on its title to the left.) Other ways of keeping your computer running well will be discussed in future article . . . keep comin' back!

JAN 2003 - A sequel to this article has been posted for Windows XP users here

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