Readers Questions. 

IF01786 

Q.  My PC appears to be locked up. When I move or click on the mouse, nothing happens. When I enter keys on the keyboard, nothing happens. What should I do?

A.  First, you should check to see if your PC will respond to the keyboard. If you hit the NumLock key several times, the NumLock light should go on and off. If it does not change, your PC is locked up. You will need to turn it off and turn it back on to restart it, but you may wish to wait a few minutes to see if it will recover on its own. If it does, you may be able to save your work before restarting the PC.

If your keyboard is still responding, follow these steps:

1. Hit the CTRL, ALT and DELETE keys simultaneously.

2. Choose "Task Manager" from the Windows Security dialog box.

3. Click on the Applications tab. This will display a list of currently running applications (or programs).

4. Review the Status column and try to identify any programs that are not responding. This will be indicated by the words "Not responding" following the program name.

5. Select the "not responding" program from the list, and then choose "End Task". You may be prompted with a dialog box telling you that the program is not responding, and asking if you want to end the program. Choose "End Task" again.

Let me know if you need anything else.

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