Cannot End Service Processes with Task Manager
This article was previously published under Q155075 SYMPTOMS
You may receive the following warning message when you try to end a process
with Task Manager:
The operation could not be completed. Access is denied.
CAUSE
Stopping a process is done with a call to TerminateProcess (Win32 API). By
default, it is not possible to kill a process that is running under a
security context different than the one of the process who issued the call
to TerminateProcess.
RESOLUTION
To work around this problem, use the KILL command line utility (available
with the Windows Resource Kit) to stop processes that do not run
under the security context of the logged on user.
MORE INFORMATION
It is possible to end any process even though it is a service or a system
process by previously enabling the debug privilege. This privilege is
assigned to Administrators and is disabled in the access token. While Task
Manager does not make use of the debug privilege, the KILL
utility does. You may assign this privilege to users other than Administrators with User Manager. To assign this privilege do the following:
221930 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221930/EN-US/) Domain Security Policy in Windows 2000
227302 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/227302/EN-US/) Using SECEDIT to Force a Group Policy Refresh Immediately
APPLIES TO
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