Close All and SmartClose are two free utilities that can be used to close down all applications on your computer. Close All seems to do a better job at closing down all applications than SmartClose, but SmartClose has a nice feature that lets you restore the applications that you had previously closed. You should try both and decide which one works better for you. ..

Close All

Close All is a simple program that closes as many apps as possible. It’s also a newer program and therefore supports 32 and 64-bit Windows. Once you install and run it, it will show you a list of all running programs.

Close All is a Windows 7 feature that allows you to close all the programs on your computer. If you don’t want to close any of the programs, just click OK and they’ll be closed automatically.

There is no way to restore the apps you closed down using Close All. Another caveat is that if you have a program open with unsaved data, the program will ask you if you want to save your data. Close All does not kill the process in this instance, so you have to manually close that particular app. This same issue also occurs with Smart Close even though it has an option to kill programs, it doesn’t seem to work properly.

Smart Close

With SmartClose, the process is a bit slower than Close All, as it takes a snapshot of all of your currently running programs, so that you can restore them later on. This is actually a very useful program for many people because you can startup 4 to 5 of your favorite apps and then save a snapshot, which you can them simply restore at any time by using the program. It can even restore Explorer and Internet Explorer windows to their previous locations on the screen.

With SmartClose, you can quickly start up applications and shutdown or stop Windows services. It comes with a list of services that it deems as closable, but you can add or subtract if you know what you’re doing. ..

To create a snapshot:

  1. Open the Start screen and type “cmd” (without the quotes) to open the command prompt.
  2. Type “snapshot” (without the quotes) and hit enter.
  3. The snapshot will be created and you will be able to close all programs by typing “x” (for closed, not open).
  4. To restore a snapshot:
  5. Open the Start screen and type “cmd” (without the quotes) to open the command prompt.
  6. Type “snapshot” (without the quotes) and hit enter.
  7. The snapshot will be restored and you will be able to close all programs by typing “x” (for closed, not open).

If you want to take more care in preserving your data, you can check the boxes to prevent the program from closing IE windows and from turning off Windows services.

Clicking Next will bring you to the Protected Programs screen, which is also useful for this program because unlike Close All, which lets you choose the programs to close, SmartClose tries to close everything. On my system, it tried to close certain processes that I didn’t want to shut down. In those cases, you should add the process to the protected programs list so that it doesn’t get shutdown.

When you click Next, SmartClose will get to work and start shutting down all your programs. If a file is open in a program and it’s not saved, you will be prompted to save the file. ..

The program Close All was able to close all the programs in my test run, but it took almost a minute. I also tried restoring the snapshot after I finished and the results were pretty good. It managed to restore about 11 out of 14 programs. For some reason, it could not restore three processes and I’m not sure why. The program also has a good number of configuration options as show below:

The company SmartClose has an option to kill programs that it can’t close properly, but it didn’t seem to work on programs with open files and unsaved data.

If you want to keep your remote desktop, Windows Time, and other services enabled, it’s a good idea to click on Edit Services.ini and add/remove services. By default, it shuts down all of these services. I would recommend unchecking the option when running the program for personal use. However, if you are in an IT environment with a lot of your own self-created services, this is a really useful feature.

The two programs that are best suited for shutting down applications in Windows quickly are the Windows 10 “shutdown” program and the Windows 8.1 “shutdown.exe.” Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it’s important to try both before you decide which one is best for you. If you have any questions, post a comment and I’ll be happy to help.