How can I close completely frozen skyrim?

[Sapient Robot]

This only happened two times until now. The game just freezes completely,and I cant even go to the desktop with ctrl+alt+del and use the task manager,I'm forced to restart the computer. Is there any way I can get out of this without closing the computer?

[alexander_dougherty]

Control+Alt+DElete , and task manager, then click on skyrim and select Close

[Sapient Robot]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Control+Alt+DElete , and task manager, then click on skyrim and select Close

Did you read what I said?

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Teratorn:

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Control+Alt+DElete , and task manager, then click on skyrim and select Close

Did you read what I said?

Sorry skimmed and missed.

In that case you only option is to restart the computer, if task manager is unavailable, then your controls are locked, and your computer is just an electronic paperweight. So restart your computer, sorry.

[vao]

Alright this is going to require you to basically work blind. But when this happens to me this is what i do. If you press ctrl+shift+esc it will boot up task manager. While your game is being a ♥♥♥♥ and frozen it is not going to leave your screen. But task manager is technically the active window behind all this frozen crap. So after you open task manager that way just wait 5 seconds and then start typing "Sky" then simply hit delete on your keyboard.


edit: if your entire pc is frozen then you are s.o.l. but if it's just the game thats bugging then you should be able to get this to work

[Sapient Robot]

Originally posted by sevra3:

Alright this is going to require you to basically work blind. But when this happens to me this is what i do. If you press ctrl+shift+esc it will boot up task manager. While your game is being a ♥♥♥♥ and frozen it is not going to leave your screen. But task manager is technically the active window behind all this frozen crap. So after you open task manager that way just wait 5 seconds and then start typing "Sky" then simply hit delete on your keyboard.


edit: if your entire pc is frozen then you are s.o.l. but if it's just the game thats bugging then you should be able to get this to work

Its only the game. It just stops working but doesnt leave the screen when i ctrl alt.

[krazyleroy]

Originally posted by sevra3:

Alright this is going to require you to basically work blind. But when this happens to me this is what i do. If you press ctrl+shift+esc it will boot up task manager. While your game is being a ♥♥♥♥ and frozen it is not going to leave your screen. But task manager is technically the active window behind all this frozen crap. So after you open task manager that way just wait 5 seconds and then start typing "Sky" then simply hit delete on your keyboard.

never thought of this.
Skyrim will freeze up every once in a while for me. will try this next time it does

[Bigguss Dickuss]

what i do when this happens is restart the game but then i cancel the restart and skyrim closes that way. idk if this breaks anything but yolo

[CtrlAltCuteness]

Skyrim seems to do that because it is an old 32-bit game. Compatibility issues can easily arise on new systems be it either new hardware, new OS, or both. I'm not going to count any fault with the programming of the game itself, if any exists.
Also do note that Microsoft leaves "backwards compatibility" mostly to the developers of the games and programs, which means if your game or program doesn't run correctly, or at all, Microsoft refuses to help, even if said game is by a defunct company / publisher that no longer exists! If you are lucky, you can force the "this program is not compatible and I refuse to make it run correctly or at all" thing to disable (like I can on Windows 8/8.1), but I assume you are left no choice on Windows 10 but to have an extremely powerful rig and a legit copy of an old Windows OS to use those older ones... ... unless it is a game made to be ran in DOS (which I suggest DOSBox is what you should use).

Add onto the fact of the numerous bugs in the game, even without adding a single mod or changing a single setting / configuration file, that stuff can accumulate to freezes and system lock-ups as well. Note that sometimes bugs surface visibly after the real problem code has executed (even worse, note that old programs that use "pointers" will most likely cause issues on modern systems if that program is moved just once to the cached RAM aka VRAM aka swap space aka temporary RAM storage on the hard drive / SSD until it is accessed again.... if you have a lot of your memory in use, and switching programs seems to make the computer sluggish, this effect of swapping programs to/from disk is the cause).

When possible playing Skyrim, especially with mods, make numerous saves (don't overwrite the same save over and over as auto-saves won't help if the fault is from before the last auto-save you have) as well as completely exit and start the game back up every now and then to free memory that is still being held by the game (Skyrim has a horrible "garbage collector" as I read in the documentation for modding).

[OwedEvil]

Originally posted by sevra3:

Alright this is going to require you to basically work blind. But when this happens to me this is what i do. If you press ctrl+shift+esc it will boot up task manager. While your game is being a ♥♥♥♥ and frozen it is not going to leave your screen. But task manager is technically the active window behind all this frozen crap. So after you open task manager that way just wait 5 seconds and then start typing "Sky" then simply hit delete on your keyboard.


edit: if your entire pc is frozen then you are s.o.l. but if it's just the game thats bugging then you should be able to get this to work

Good tip.

[CtrlAltCuteness]

Or... or you can have a hotkey program that runs as Administrator and have it wait for a specifc keybind (or if it supports gamepads, and you just want to have it plugged in for "emergency" situations like this, a button combo on that), and then use that, with the correct commands / system calls, to end the task of Skyrim (probably need to make sure it is running and we got the correct process ID before executing said command or we could end up with a murderous system on our hands!)
EDIT: That actually doesn't sound like a bad idea. *fetches gamepad*

[KingKolPlays]

Lol I was skeptic but, yah just doing crl alt del then start typing skyrim and del and it closes... ty you sir!

[G (For)]

Nice necro

[OwedEvil]

Originally posted by KingKolPlays:

Lol I was skeptic but, yah just doing crl alt del then start typing skyrim and del and it closes... ty you sir!

I'm sure it's just a typo, but CTRL+SHIFT+ESC opens teh manager directly, for Windows 10 anyways. And, I agree, excellent tip.

[mikk011]

Btw, open your task manager, click on "Options" and make sure "Always on top" is checked. This may or may not address the frozen Skyrim issue, but having the manager appear over the top of frozen screens has avoided several other crashed game headaches for me.

[ObviouslyEvil]

If you have multiple accounts on your pc, you can switch to another account using ctrl+alt+del, open task manager from the new account, going to users, and ending the task from the other account. Sorry for being many years late with this solution/necroing the discussion, hope this helps.