Suspend a Windows program

The Windows PsSuspend SysInternals tool can suspend (pause) and resume a Windows program. This is useful for programs that take time to startup, close, or configure but that the user doesn’t want to leave running all the time. For example, a game or control program that polls repeatedly for changes but the user doesn’t always need to have the program constantly running.

The Microsoft SysInternals tools including PsSuspend can be installed like:

winget install --id Microsoft.Sysinternals.PsTools -e

For example, open Notepad then:

pssuspend Notepad

Observe that Notepad is suspended and cannot be interacted with. Then resume Notepad with:

pssuspend -r Notepad

Separately, the pslist tool can be used to find the process ID (PID) of a program. For example, open Notepad then:

pslist Notepad