How To Fully Close Background Processes on Windows PC and Fix Lagging Issues

1. Revealed: What You Think Is “Closing Software” Is Actually a Deception

Many Windows PC users have encountered such a problem: even after closing all open software windows, their computers still lag, overheat, and when they open Task Manager, they find that the memory and CPU usage are still high. The core reason behind this is that you only close the front-end window of the software, while many programs still run secretly in the background, continuously consuming system resources. Today, we will detail how to fully close background processes on your PC, optimize your computer’s running speed from the root, and say goodbye to inexplicable lag.

Take Microsoft Edge, which we use daily, for example. Many people think it has completely exited after clicking the close button in the upper right corner, but in fact, its background processes are still running silently, secretly occupying memory and CPU. This “false closure” phenomenon exists in many commonly used software. Over time, it will not only slow down the computer’s running speed but also shorten the service life of the computer’s hardware.

2. Practical Verification: Two Common Software to Help You See the Truth of Background Residency

To help you more intuitively understand the situation of software background residency, we take two commonly used software, Microsoft Edge and Teamviewer, as examples. Through detailed steps, we will let you witness the truth of “front-end closure but background still running” and help you break the cognitive misunderstanding.

2.1 Verify the Background Residency of Microsoft Edge

1. First, open Microsoft Edge on your computer, open any web page at will, and keep the browser window displayed normally.
2. Then, press the “Ctrl+Shift+Esc” key combination to quickly open Task Manager.
3. In the menu bar on the left side of Task Manager, click the “Processes” option to enter the process management interface.
4. In the process list, find the “Apps” category. At this time, you can clearly see the icon of “Microsoft Edge” and the corresponding process information, showing that it is running.
5. Return to the Edge browser window and click the “×” close button in the upper right corner to close the browser’s front-end window.
6. Switch back to Task Manager again and check the “Apps” category. At this time, you will find that the icon of Edge has disappeared, and it seems to have completely exited.
7. But scroll down the process list and find the “Background processes” category. You will find that the process of “Microsoft Edge” still exists and is continuously consuming CPU and memory resources.

2.2 Verify the Background Residency of Teamviewer

1. Open Teamviewer on your computer and ensure that the software starts normally and displays the main window.
2. Also press the “Ctrl+Shift+Esc” key combination to open Task Manager. Find the process of Teamviewer in the “Apps” category and confirm that it is running.
3. Click the “×” close button in the upper right corner of the Teamviewer main window. At this time, a prompt window will pop up, clearly informing you that “Teamviewer is still running, only the window is closed”.
4. Click the confirmation option in the prompt window to close the Teamviewer front-end window.
5. Return to Task Manager and check the “Apps” category. At this time, the icon of Teamviewer has disappeared, but in the “Background processes” category, you can still find the relevant processes of Teamviewer, proving that it is still resident in the background.

3. Must-Learn for Ordinary Users, Manually Close Background Processes Completely (Zero Threshold)

For most ordinary computer users, no complex operations are needed. You only need to master simple manual closing methods to completely end software background residency without damaging the computer system and software data. This method is suitable for most commonly used software, especially software like Teamviewer that displays icons in the system tray.
Detailed Operation Steps (Take Teamviewer as an Example)

1. After closing the Teamviewer front-end window, find the system tray in the lower right corner of the computer screen (the far right of the taskbar), and click the “up arrow” on the tray to expand the hidden icon list.
2. In the expanded icon list, find the small icon of Teamviewer and right-click it with the mouse.
3. In the pop-up right-click menu, find the “Exit Teamviewer” option and click it.
4. At this time, a confirmation window will pop up again, asking if you want to exit Teamviewer. Click the “Exit” button to complete the operation.
5. Open Task Manager again and check the “Background processes” category. You will find that the process of Teamviewer has disappeared, proving that it has been completely closed.
6. Tips: This method is suitable for most software with icons in the system tray, such as WeChat, QQ, DingTalk, etc. You only need to follow the above steps, find the tray icon of the corresponding software, and right-click to exit to completely close the background process.

4. Advanced Operation, Disable Software Background Auto-Startup Service (Cure Repeated Residency)

Some software (such as Teamviewer) not only resides in the background after closing the front-end window but also starts automatically with the Windows system. Even if you manually close the background process, it will still run automatically the next time you start the computer, continuously consuming system resources. For this situation, we need to adjust the system service settings to completely disable the software’s background auto-start function.
Detailed Operation Steps (Take Teamviewer as an Example)

1. Follow the steps in Method 1 to completely exit the front-end window and background process of Teamviewer.
2. In the search box in the lower left corner of the computer desktop, enter “Services”, find the “Services” app in the search results, and click to open it.
3. In the opened “Services” window, find the search box, enter “Teamviewer”, and quickly locate the system service related to Teamviewer.
4. Right-click the service, and in the pop-up right-click menu, click the “Properties” option to open the service properties window.
5. In the properties window, find the “Startup type” option. At this time, you will see that its default setting is “Automatic” (that is, it starts automatically with the system).
6. Click the drop-down menu on the right side of “Startup type”, change it to “Manual”, and then click the “OK” button at the bottom of the window to save the settings.
7. After the settings are completed, the next time you restart the Windows system, the Teamviewer service will not start automatically. It will only run when you actively open the Teamviewer software, avoiding resource consumption caused by background auto-start from the root.

5. Emergency Plan, Force Close Background Processes (Use with Caution!)

Sometimes, we will encounter situations where the software’s front-end window cannot be closed and the background process continues to occupy a lot of resources. At this time, we can use the method of forcing to end the process to quickly terminate the background process. However, it should be noted that this method may cause the loss of unsaved data in the software, so it is not recommended to use it frequently, only as an emergency plan.
Detailed Operation Steps

1. Press the “Ctrl+Shift+Esc” key combination to open Task Manager and enter the “Processes” interface.
2. In the “Background processes” category, find the software process that cannot be closed normally (you can quickly locate it through the process name and memory usage rate).
3. Right-click the process, and in the pop-up right-click menu, click the “End Task” option.
4. At this time, a confirmation window will pop up, prompting “Ending the task will close the running program and may lose unsaved data”. After confirming, click “End Task” to force close the background process.
5. Special Reminder: Forcing to end processes is only applicable to emergency situations where the software freezes and cannot be closed normally. Try to avoid using it in daily operations to prevent data loss.

6. Exclusive for Tech Enthusiasts, Close Background Processes with Command Prompt (Efficient and Fast)

For users who like to tinker with computers and are familiar with command line operations, using CMD command prompt to close background processes is more efficient and fast, especially when you need to close multiple similar processes in batches. The command line operation can save a lot of time. Below, we will detailedly explain how to query and close background processes through the command line.
Detailed Operation Steps (Take Closing Google Chrome Processes as an Example)

1. In the search box in the lower left corner of the computer desktop, enter “CMD” and find the “Command Prompt” app.
2. Right-click “Command Prompt”, and in the pop-up right-click menu, click “Run as administrator” to open the command line window (it must be run as an administrator, otherwise the command may not be executed normally).
3. In the command line window, enter the command to query processes: tasklist /fi “imagename eq chrome.exe”, after entering, press the Enter key.
4. At this time, the command line window will list all background processes with the process name “chrome.exe”, including detailed information such as the Process ID (PID) and memory usage of each process, which is convenient for us to confirm the processes to be closed.
5. If you need to close all background processes related to “chrome.exe”, enter the close command in the command line window: taskkill /im chrome.exe /f, after entering, press the Enter key.
6. After the command is executed, it will prompt “Successfully terminated the process”. At this time, open Task Manager, and you will find that all background processes related to Google Chrome have been completely closed, and the Chrome windows on the taskbar will also be closed synchronously.
7. Supplement: “chrome.exe” in the command can be replaced with the process name of any software (such as edge.exe, TeamViewer.exe, etc.). “/fi” is a filter used to filter processes with specified names; “/im” is used to specify the process name, and “/f” means to force end the process.

7. Summary: Choose the Right Method for Different Scenarios and Say Goodbye to Background Sneaking

Through the above four methods, we can choose the appropriate way to completely close the computer background processes according to different usage scenarios: ordinary users can use the method of manually closing the tray icon, which is simple and easy to operate; users who need to cure software auto-start can adjust the system service startup type; in emergency situations, the method of forcing to end processes can be used for emergency; tech enthusiasts can achieve efficient operation through the command line.

In fact, the root cause of computer lag is often not insufficient hardware configuration, but a large number of background processes secretly consuming resources. Mastering these methods to close background processes, you can easily optimize the computer’s running speed without upgrading the hardware, making your computer smooth again. Hurry up to collect this tutorial. Next time you encounter computer lag, you can deal with it calmly!

8. Demo Video

You can watch the following demo video by select the subtitle to your preferred subtitle language.