Why do programs I have exited out of stay on my task list?

[Accipiter22]

For instance if I'm playing simcity 4 and close out of it, and then hit alt/ctl/del and go to the list of all the processes running, along with all the normal system and administrator and current user proccesses running, simcity 4 will still be listed, sucking up resources....same with firefox, or IE, or just about any program i start manually, after I close out it stays in the current proccesses list...kind of a pain cause it sucks up resources...not sure if this is an issue with RAM or with XP pro SP2...or what it is

 

[BlueWeasel]

I've noticed a similar problem with Acrobat v6 and v7 and a few times with Firefox (also running SP2).

 

[Accipiter22]

yah, like it would happen rarely, very very rarely in SP1,, like maybe once every other week...but with SP2 it happens constantly with firefox, IE, and Simcity 4

 

[kylef]

This is not normal. When you exit an application, its process should go away.

If you have exited an application, and the UI goes away, but its process still shows up in Task Manager, then it is either hung, or has failed to process the Window Message telling it to quit. You can safely click on the "End Process" button to kill such apps.

This should not be a common condition: if it is common, something else is wrong with your system.

As far as Acrobat is concerned: the issue there is that Acrobat runs as a service. If you load an Acrobat Document into your web browser, Acroread32.exe loads and will remain loaded even after you're done viewing the PDF in your browser. This is Acrobat's fault. You can either kill the Acroread32.exe process using the "End Process" button in Task Manager, or you can let it run. It really doesn't harm anything if you aren't viewing documents; it just causes Acrobat to load faster the next time you open a PDF.