Alt-F4 not closing some applications

  • Thread starter Thread starter ed.gatzke
  • Start date Start date
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ed.gatzke

Alt-F4 does not close my cmd.exe window and it does not work on some
other applications as well.

I have not done anything (that I know of) to remap Alt-F4. This closes
almost every application but cmd.exe.

I have not mapped Alt-F4 to a shortcut keyboard shortcut.

My keyboard is fairly standard Dell USB, no fancy "shopping buttons" to
contend with. HID Keyboard device, driver 5.1.2600,2180.

I am running XP SP2 version 2002 on dual dualcore Xeon processors.

The other application I know of that does not respond to Alt-F4 is lyx,
a document processor. I have tried to muck around with the lyx
specific file that specifies keyboard bindings for the lyx.exe but
nothing has worked for me.
 
Alt-F4 does not close my cmd.exe window

Mine either.

Try: Alt + Spacebar then hit C

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
That does work, but it is an awkward combination (shortcut, then
another key).

I am coming off many years using a unix desktop where all my
applications closed using alt-F4, so I would love to get this fixed.
It should be consistent across applications I would think.

I read in another group that some people do have cmd.exe closing using
Alt-F4, so maybe it is a variable problem and not the fault of the
application itself.

Ed
 
Type exit in cmd.exe and hit Enter.

I don't know what I was thinking with that other awkward combination.

Or just click on the [X].

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
Keyboard shortcuts should be consistent and short. It bugs me the OS
does not interpret Alt-F4 as "hit the big red X".

Yes, you can hit the big red X with the mouse, but I rarely use the
mouse when acutally working on documents or programming / running
stuff. Mostly for browsing and moving email around.

I have heard inconsisten reports, some say Alt-F4 actually closes
cmd.exe on their machines so I don't know what is going on, especially
since it is inconsistent on various applications on my machine.

Very very odd.

Ed



Wesley said:
Type exit in cmd.exe and hit Enter.

I don't know what I was thinking with that other awkward combination.

Or just click on the [X].

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
That does work, but it is an awkward combination (shortcut, then
another key).

I am coming off many years using a unix desktop where all my
applications closed using alt-F4, so I would love to get this fixed.
It should be consistent across applications I would think.

I read in another group that some people do have cmd.exe closing using
Alt-F4, so maybe it is a variable problem and not the fault of the
application itself.

Ed
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
So cmd.exe does not respond to Alt-F4. I blame the XP OS, as it should
send the same kill signal to the application when I mouse click the big
upper right hand X or type Alt-F4. It should not be up to the
application to decide whether or not to respond to Alt-F4.

I thought cmd.exe might be the root cause for my other applications
having trouble closing on Alt-F4, so I tried to rename cmd.exe,
thinking the other applications might fail in interesting ways so that
I could try to figure out what was going on. HA. I renamed cmd.exe to
newcmd.exe, but I still had cmd.exe in the C\Windows\system32
directory. And you can't seem to erase cmd.exe. It reappears. Crazy.

At least on unix, you can run "rm -rf /" all you want. The system will
let you do almost anything, no matter how stupid.

So I am resigning myself to the fact that Windows is crippled and
cannot be fully understood. You cannot dig down and correct a problem,
solutions come from random "try this and it might work" or maybe
"intstall this other application to fix that" or "here is a crazy
workaround".
 
Command.com does not close with Alt + F4 either. In fact command.com hardly
responds to the Close [X]. Typing exit works best. Edit.com does not
respond to Alt + F4 or the Close [X]. To close Edit, Alt key + F for the
File Menu, X key to select Exit.

Renaming cmd.exe will not accomplish anything.

Copy cmd.exe from C:\WINDOWS\system32
Paste it to your Desktop
Rename it x.exe
Double click x.exe

cmd.exe lives in
C:\WINDOWS\system32
and
C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache

Windows File Protection. If you try to remove, change or alter a file in
C:\WINDOWS\system32 in any way, WFP replaces the tampered with file from
C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache.

To get around it you have to remove the corresponding file from dllcache.

Description of the Windows File Protection Feature
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;222193

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
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