My PC is nine years old, and even though I've upgraded its SSD and RAM, it does experience the occasional freeze. It most often happens when I leave Age of Empires 2 running while I complete a few quick chores around the house. Once I'm back at my PC, the game sometimes becomes unresponsive, and my only option is to hold down the power button for a forced shutdown. This is not good for your computer, and ideally, you'd want to try other options first. So, I've been looking for a solution to force-quit frozen apps, and this Reddit thread gave me a few solid ideas. Here's what I found worked for me:

Ensure that Task Manager is always on top

If you're trying to launch Task Manager, it may get stuck behind a full-screen app. To prevent this, you can force the app to always appear above all other apps on your computer. You can open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Shift-Esc or searching for the app in the Start menu. Once Task Manager is running, click Settings in the left pane, and under "Window management," enable Always on top.

Create a new desktop

If a full-screen app is frozen in Windows 11, you can use the keyboard shortcut Win-Ctrl-D to create a new desktop on your PC. This will force Windows to switch to the newly created desktop, and allow you to access Task Manager or other apps that you need. Once you've used this tip to handle the rogue app, you can press Win-Ctrl-F4 to close the new desktop. To move between different desktops in Windows, press Win-Ctrl-→ or Win-Ctrl-←.

Use the power button to enable sleep mode

Pressing the power button usually turns off your computer. Most manufacturers have you long-press the power button to do a forced shutdown, but this should only be used in emergencies. This is the equivalent of yanking out the power cord to turn off your computer, and you risk losing data by using this option. If you're encountering a frozen app, you can configure the power button to put your PC in sleep mode instead. The benefit is that waking your PC opens the lock screen, and you can use that to access Task Manager.

To set this up, open the Start menu and search for "Control Panel." Open Control Panel, and in the top-right corner of the window, click the drop-down menu next to "View by." Select Large icons or Small icons. This will reveal all Control Panel features, including Power Options. In the left pane, select Choose what the power buttons do. Now, click the drop-down menu next to "When I press the power button," and click Sleep. You can press the power button on your PC now, and it'll put the computer to sleep.

Try a handy keyboard shortcut

Microsoft coded a hidden keyboard shortcut into Windows for you to use when encountering a black screen. Maybe your computer isn't frozen, but an app is stuck, or there's an issue with a display driver leading to a black screen. In these cases, use the keyboard shortcut Win-Ctrl-Shift-B: It'll recreate your desktop and let you avoid a forced restart of your computer.