Clod

getting the process id from the sysinternals tool "pslist" then using the other tool "pskill" often works for stuff the gui won't let you shut down.

their gui tool (process explorer) CAN sometimes kill stuff that the process manager can't too. you could try those

(may need to "run as administrator" though)

haha you're going to have to explain that as if i have no idea what you're talking about there

ok, start with process explorer - download it from the microsoft site, unzip it, and then right-click the program file and select "run as administrator" - that gives it more rights on the system. Otherwise, it looks a lot like process manager. Find your audacity on there, and right click it, selecting "kill tree" (which will kill any child processes it might have, too)

if that doesn't work, grab the pstools from the microsoft site, and unzip those. these are command line tools, so you will need a command prompt. Easiest way to get that is to hit the start button, and type "cmd" - that should bring up a black icon for cmd.exe. Right click that, and select copy, and then right click in your new pstools folder and paste it there. if you now right-click the black cmd icon in the folder, you can select "run as administrator" and get an elevated command prompt in the right place.

with your command prompt, type "pslist" and hit enter - that will show you running processes, and a "process id" for each (you will see that the pid for audacity is the same as the one process explorer shows). You can then type "pskill" followed by a space, then the pid number, to try and kill that process.

The sysinternals tools are some of the most powerful ones microsoft have - and are free, which is a good thing. worth looking at what some of the other tools do (and also being aware that you can run them directly from live.sysinternals.com if you don't want to keep a copy )