When you are installing a new software, sometimes it fails to work because some processes are running on your computer. For example, some programs want you to close Windows File Explorer while others want you to close all the running web browsers before the installation can be completed. For these situations, you can use a free software called SmartClose. This small tool can automatically close all the programs and Windows services on your PC and then restart them all once you have performed the installation of whatever software you were intending to install.
As you launch SmartClose, it presents you with many options like to create a system snapshot before closing all the programs and to restore the previously saved snapshot. When it saves a snapshot of your system it records all the data of which of the services are running and which of the programs were running when the snapshot was taken. After you have done installing a software on your PC, you can choose the second option to restore all of the processes, programs and the services just like they were before from the recorded snapshot. This way, you can bring your system back to exactly the same state as it was before.
The default options should work for anyone who wishes to use SmartClose, but you can customize how it closes various processes, and how it restores them back. In the options, you can choose to create a shortcut for the program, associate the snapshot files with SmartClose, choose to use SmartKill to terminate the background processes that refuse to be closed in the normal way and many more.
All in all, SmartClose is a great tool for situations when you have to close all the programs save a few, carry out some tasks like software installation, system changes or even playing games, and then restore back the system state as it was before.
You can download SmartClose from http://bmproductions.fixnum.org/smartclose/index.htm.