How create a shortcut to close all running applications

Many Windows users sometimes need to close as quickly as possible all running applications, for instance, to run resource-intensive game. In this case, you can create a shortcut on your desktop that will lock the taskbar and close all programs with a single click.

First you need to create a shortcut: right click on the desktop → New → Shortcut, then in the "Select the location of the object" input text:

taskkill /F /FI "USERNAME eq user_name" /FI "IMAGENAME ne explorer.exe" /FI "IMAGENAME ne dwm.exe"

Where "user_name" should be replaced by your own username.

Then specify the name and, if necessary, change the icon in the properties of the created shortcut. To lock to the taskbar you only need to right-click on the shortcut, and select in the context menu "Lock the taskbar".

In order to exclude from the list of processes to be terminated a specific program, all you need to do is to add to the above "input text"(separated by space), the following:

/FI "IMAGENAME ne PROGRAM_NAME.exe"

Where PROGRAM_NAME must be replaced with your own, the exact name of the executable file, you can look up in the Task Manager or the properties of the shortcut of the program.