What programs do you have freeze up often?

Personally I suspect that this project is a waste of your time, given that Sysinternals’ procexp.exe can do this arbitrarily in a more reliable way than the regular (next to useless IMO) Task Manager. Of course, if you are happy with the way your time is spent that’s all that matters.

If you check out the Sysinternals blog they might have more information on common culprits.
I don’t use Windows for the most part, but I have found that Internet Explorer, explorer.exe and OpenOffice are very crashy. I’m happy to say I have not used Windows at all in the last two years so things might have changed (this was in XP Home, I hear things are much more stable in Win7).

Not really a waste, it just takes 3 lines of copied code and replacing the task to change it. Plus, some of my other programs have a lot more functionality.

I have windows 7, it’s a great OS. I haven’t had a single problem with it at all.

The track editor in Microsoft Train Simulator crashes often. Really disappointing because I had dreams of building a virtual railroad empire…

You have hit on the only programs I personally have had chronic issues with; those by Macroshaft and Apple.

@koanhead It’s not a waste of time if he is doing this to relieve boredom. Kallisti knows that you and I have done less productive things. “Swing jousting” comes to mind immediately.

@HungryGuy Train simulator crashing… is that irony?

@jerv – Yeah, kind’a. But the simulator runs fine. It’s the track and level editor that crashes…something that most people would never use or are even aware that it’s there as en extra on the CD.

The combination of Firefox’s last 3 editions, with Adobe Flash, is toxic.

Fallout: New Vegas, with decent textures, crashes with the frequency of an army of drunk drivers. Mostly, those crashes require that I restart the whole computer.

@Nullo Thanks for the pointer. I was considering buying that game but now…..

I have a mac, it never freezes on anything, really.

@jerv I have new vegas, I run it at max settings and it has never crashed on me. Highly recommend it.

Adobe Flash is also the latest entry point for virus attacks. Avoid it like the plague! Literally!

@Nullo – That game requires pretty substantial hardware! What are you giving it?

@Lightlyseared Maybe you have a newer version with patches?

@HungryGuy I guess it depends on what you mean by “substantial”. According to this spec checker my little $600 rig would have no major issues with it. My graphics card is a little weak the price I pay for opting for a fanless card :/ but still well above the minimum requirements

@jerv It’s “steampowered” so it auto updates everytime you play (assuming you’re connected to the net).

@Lightlyseared Ah.

@HungryGuy Nvidia GeForce 7600 for the graphics. I know, it’s weak, weak, weak. Almost certainly the cause of my problems, but I’d really rather not have to reboot every time it freezes.
It’s more reliable when I turn off the high-quality textures and crank down the antialiasing.

@Lightlyseared I was under the impression that Bethesda had only released the first two updates. I’d heard that before them, the game was a lot less stable.

@jerv You should get it, it’s fun. The wide open spaces are a nice change (though the scale doesn’t feel terribly realistic, and it’s not especially rich in locations), and they threw in a reputation system to complement the karma meter. And while there are Ghouls about, there aren’t nearly as many as in Fallout 3. I’ve never liked the Feral Ghouls.

@Nullo – Yup. That’s probably your problem. Get yourself a current GPU and the game should run smoothly.

(This is why I prefer to play games on my Xbox and/or Playstation—keeping a gaming PC current is a money pit.)

@HungryGuy Not as much as you would think, and my PC is far less likely to overheat than a PS3 or Xbox 360, the latter of which has a failure rate of over 30%.

They’ve fixed that problem with the newer ones, sort’a. There’s a sensor that shuts it off if it gets too hot. Still a kludge for poor design that allows it to overheat in the first place, but prevents the Red Ring of Death.

@HungryGuy… and costs almost as much as my computer, which will likely still be relevant (but not cutting edge, even though it never really was) when the PS4 and XBox 720 come out :/

MSN since I updated to Windows7. I have it through Fios.

I think most crashes have less to do with how one specific application is programed, and more to do with the various system configurations of different machines.