This article is about an issue where a PID shows on the netstat command, but the PID is not showing in the task manager, thus making it impossible to know the process assigned to that PID.
Many people don’t know that they don’t actually need the task manager to find the process assigned to a specific PID.
Here is how to find out which process belongs to the PID you found, so you can kill the process using a port:
- On Windows Search, type Command Prompt, then click on Run as administrator:
- Now on CMD, run the following command:
netstat -abo
(To understand what the netstat command does, check this article on the Microsoft website) - You will be able to visualize the process name, the port, as well as its respective PID, as shown in the picture below:
- To kill the process using a port, run this command on CMD:
taskkill /f /im example.exe
Replace “example” for the name of the process you want to kill, like in the picture above.
In Step 4, you can alternatively use taskkill /f /pid to kill a process by its PID instead of its name.
For example, if you want to kill the PID 1040, you would enter the following command on CMD:
taskkill /f /pid 1040
(If your task manager crashes when you click on the Performance tab, I’ve written an article on how you can quickly fix that.)
If you are still unsatisfied that specific processes’ PID are not showing on Task Manager, I suggest you download Sysinternals Process Explorer. Process Explorer gives more information and control over your processes than Task Manager.
Conclusion
It is unimportant if an application PID is not showing on Task Manager because you don’t need the Task Manager to find it.
You need to open an elevated command prompt window, and run the command netstat -abo to find out which application uses the occupied port. Then use taskkill /f /im example.exe (replace “example” with the process name) to kill the process.
I also recommend trying Sysinternals Process Explorer, which is more advanced and detailed than Task Manager.
If your disk data is missing from the task manager, check my article on how to fix disk performance not showing in the task manager.
To fix more task manager related problems, check my article on how to fix “there are no startup items to display” in task manager.
