Powershell script to kill long-running processes

$startTimeLimit = (get-date) - (new-timespan -minutes 5)
$processes_to_kill = get-process | 
    where {$_.StartTime -lt $startTimeLimit -and ($_.path -like "*winword.exe" -or $_.path -like "*excel.exe") }
if ($processes_to_kill -ne $null)
{
    $processes_to_kill | foreach { $_.Kill() }
}

12 thoughts on “Powershell script to kill long-running processes”

1. It doesn’t work. I tried it on a Windows 2008 server.

2. That’s very strange, I have no problems on our Windows 2008 Server.

   Do you get an error message?

3. great script , works on XP system. thanks for sharing

4. This is great 🙂 Worked with Win7x64. I simplified your script a bit:

   $startTimeLimit = (get-date) – (new-timespan -minutes 5)

   get-process | where {$_.StartTime -lt $startTimeLimit -and ($_.path -like “*winword.exe” -or $_.path -like “*excel.exe”) } | foreach { $_.Kill() }

   Christian

5. THANKS A LOT!
   your script was perfect for my problem, working on windows server 2003 on AWS.

6. we have ascript like this :

   # PowerShell
   #Get list of processes matching the name and older than 30 minutes.
   $orphanProcs = get-process | where {($_.path -like “*chrome.exe” -or $_.path -like “*iexplore.exe” -or $_.path -like “*firefox.exe”
   -or $_.path -like “*IEDriverServer.exe” -or $_.path -like “*chromedriver.exe”) -and
   ($_.StartTime -lt (get-date).addminutes(-30))}

   #Check if list is Null and if not kill them all:
   If ($orphanProcs) {
   #display list
   $orphanProcs
   #kill list
   $orphanProcs | foreach { $_.Kill() }
   } Else {
   echo “no processes found older than specified”
   }

   but it kills all the browser session rather than those which are older than 30 mins.

   We are on windows 2012 r2 version . Can someone help please

7. @rocky, the script looks okay. But maybe you have dependencies between the processes, such as an old chromedriver.exe having started new chrome.exe processes so that when you kill chromedriver.exe, then also the newer chrome.exe processes are killed?

   I would also check your script carefully so you don’t have any unwanted newlines. You can also try adding extra grouping parenthesis, just in case. For example around the whole right hand part of the assignment:

   $orphanProcs = ( get-process | where {…} )

   Other than that, what normally helps with this type of problem is to remove parts of the script one at a time, until it starts working. The last part you remove is probably causing it. It might be in your where clause, for example.

   HTH

   Emil

8. Thanks Emil For your help but I am still not able to achieve my task…

   I have modified the script to kill sessions older than 10 minutes and create log also and in this scenario I have included chrome browser, excel and word file .

   My Script is :

   $startTimeLimit = (get-date) – (new-timespan -minutes 10)
   $processes_to_kill = get-process |
   where {$_.StartTime -lt $startTimeLimit -and ($_.path -like “*winword.exe” -or $_.path -like “*chrome.exe” -or $_.path -like “*excel.exe”) }
   if ($processes_to_kill -ne $null)
   {
   $processes_to_kill | foreach { $_.Kill() }
   }

   $Stamp = (Get-Date).toString(“yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss”)
   $Separator = “******************************************************************************************************************************”
   $Counter = “0”
   if ($processes_to_kill -ne $null)
   {
   $Counter = @($processes_to_kill).Count
   }
   Add-Content ‘C:\Users\n427193\joblogfile.txt’ $Stamp
   Add-Content ‘C:\Users\n427193\joblogfile.txt’ ‘Total number of browser session older than 30 minutes are :’
   Add-Content ‘C:\Users\n427193\joblogfile.txt’ $Counter
   Add-Content ‘C:\Users\n427193\joblogfile.txt’ $Separator

9. In case of excel and word it works perfectly fine but unfortunately fails in case of chrome browser as if it finds even a single browser session older than 10 minutes it closes all the sessions, which are even not older than 10 minutes.

   My final objective is close all the sessions of firefox, chrome, internet explorer session which are older tan 30 minutes.

   If you can help then it will be great!!!!

10. That sounds like a problem caused by how Chrome manages it’s processes. I don’t know the details about that, I’m afraid.

    /Emil

11. Great Script. Is there any idea to kill only a particular excel file rather than killing all.

12. (get-process |?{($_.StartTime -lt (get-date) – (new-timespan -minutes 180)) -and ($_.ProcessName -like “Powershell”) }).Kill()

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