title: How to kill a hidden process in Windows 7
body: <p>I have a hidden process started by a 3rd party vendor software running on my machine that I am unable to stop or kill it using the following methods:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Use the Windows Service commend line: <code>sc stop "Process_Name"</code> or <code>sc config "Process_Name" start= disabled</code> (where <code>Process_Name</code> is the string name of the hidden process I am trying to stop. Notice that I started the command window with the administrator rights, yet still unable to stop it;</li>
  <li>Use the Services.msc tool trying to change it's start type from automatic to manual or stoped;</li>
  <li>Use the ProcExplorer tool (an advanced Task Manager tool) in the SystemInternals tool suite (<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx</a>), even with running it in the administrator mode;</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I get access denied error message when trying to kill the process using these methods. My login account has the administrator rights, although I am not logging in with the administrator account name.  The other thing I am unable to do is to start the Windows in Safe Mode to prevent it from starting, because I don't have the bitlocker code of the machine, which is needed to start the Windows in Safe Mode.</p>
  
  <p>So my question is, with my current user rights (admin account rights) but no Safe Mode or admin account log-in ability, is there any way for me to stop such running Windows process, or prevent it from starting at the Windows start up?  Has anyone run into similar problem and found a way to do it?</p>