It’s possible an application has stalled causing the hang up. To try to recover an active Windows session, press and hold the Ctrl and Alt keys on your keyboard. While holding them down, press the Delete key, then let go of all three keys. A Close Program window should come up. Look for any program that says Not Responding next to it and click the End Task button. After a few seconds, a separate End Task dialog box should come up. Click End Task again and Windows will close the program that was locked up.

If pressing Ctrl, Alt, Delete does nothing or if trying to end a task results in a total lock-up, you're out of luck. The only thing to do now is press and hold the power button on the front of the computer until the computer turns off, then wait at least 10 seconds and turn the computer back on.

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