When administering Windows systems, there are scenarios where you need to terminate a specific process (like foo.exe) running under a particular user account, while preserving instances running under other accounts. The standard taskkill /IM foo.exe command would terminate all instances indiscriminately, which could disrupt other users' workflows.

Windows taskkill command supports filters that let you target processes based on various criteria, including username:

taskkill /FI "USERNAME eq TARGET_USER" /IM foo.exe

• /FI: Applies a filter to select processes
• "USERNAME eq TARGET_USER": Filter for processes running under specified account
• /IM foo.exe: Targets the specific image name

To terminate foo.exe running under user 'DEV01':

taskkill /FI "USERNAME eq DEV01" /IM foo.exe

Combine multiple filters for precise targeting:

taskkill /FI "USERNAME eq TEST_USER" /FI "STATUS eq RUNNING" /IM foo.exe

For more complex scenarios, PowerShell offers greater flexibility:

Get-Process foo | Where-Object {$_.UserName -like "*TARGET_USER*"} | Stop-Process -Force

• Ensure you have administrative privileges
• For domain accounts, use DOMAIN\USER format
• Check for process dependencies that might prevent termination

When managing processes on Windows systems, administrators often need to terminate specific processes running under particular user accounts. The standard taskkill command can terminate processes by name or PID, but filtering by username requires additional parameters.

The fundamental syntax for terminating a process named "foo.exe" would be:

taskkill /IM foo.exe /F

This forces all instances of foo.exe to terminate, which isn't what we want in this scenario.

To target processes running under a specific user account, we combine taskkill with the /FI (filter) parameter:

taskkill /IM foo.exe /FI "USERNAME eq target_user" /F

Replace "target_user" with the actual username (domain included if necessary).

Here are some real-world usage scenarios:

:: Terminate notepad.exe running under user 'jsmith'
taskkill /IM notepad.exe /FI "USERNAME eq jsmith" /F

:: Kill chrome.exe for domain user 'DOMAIN\jdoe'
taskkill /IM chrome.exe /FI "USERNAME eq DOMAIN\jdoe" /F

:: Gracefully terminate (no /F) outlook.exe for 'admin'
taskkill /IM outlook.exe /FI "USERNAME eq admin"

You can combine multiple filters for more precise targeting:

:: Terminate hung instances running more than 2 hours
taskkill /IM foo.exe /FI "USERNAME eq service_acct" /FI "CPUTIME gt 02:00:00" /F

Always verify with tasklist first:

tasklist /V /FI "IMAGENAME eq foo.exe" /FI "USERNAME eq target_user"

For more modern systems, PowerShell offers greater flexibility:

Get-Process foo -IncludeUserName | Where-Object {$_.UserName -match "domain\\user"} | Stop-Process -Force

When scripting, always check the errorlevel:

taskkill /IM foo.exe /FI "USERNAME eq target" /F
if %errorlevel% neq 0 (
    echo Process termination failed
    exit /b 1
)

Remember that terminating processes requires appropriate permissions. For system services running under specific accounts, consider using SC command instead.