Hello, I was just wondering if it is possible to stop the explorer.exe Windows process within a batch file. As I've noticed that it uses ALOT of my pagefile, and, when stopped, significantly improves game performance. Thank you in advance. -Vacuus

EXPLORER.EXE is the user shell, which we see as the familiar taskbar, desktop, and so on. This process isn't as vital to the running of Windows as you might expect, and can be stopped (and restarted) from Task Manager, usually with no negative side effects on the system. Note: The Explorer.exe file is located in the c:\windows\System32 folder. In other cases, Explorer.exe is a virus, spyware, trojan or worm! If you're looking for an alternative shell, visit this web site: http://www.skinyourscreen.com/skinwiki/index.php/Category:Alternate_Shells Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

Thank you for your replies, however I'm well aware that explorer.exe is a shell, and that it controls the users desktop. However, it is possible to play games without running explorer, which also gives you a performance boost. I've tried other shells, and did not like them, so I was wondering whether I can close it within a batch file. Thank you in advance.

Yes. @echo off taskkill /IM explorer.exe pause explorer.exe It kills Explorer, then waits for the user to press a key. It then restarts Explorer.

Hey, thank you. Works perfectly Just one last thing, what does the /IM switch do? You've been most helpful

No problem. /IM tells it to kill the process based on it's image name. For example, you could use TASKKILL /IM notepad.exe to kill an instance of Notepad. The problem is that it's not very specific so if you have two copies of Notepad running and run that command it will terminate both of them. To be more specific you need to use the PID, but this isn't easy to find without looking in Task Manager. You can also use the /F switch to force the app to close. This would, for example, prevent the program from waiting to find out if the current file needs saved.

Hey, turns out I had to add a /F switch (works on one machine, but not the other?) to the cmd. I've posted the batch file over on the Elderscrolls Forums, mentioning you guys, of course! Again, thank you for your help.