How does Windows kill a process, exactly?

I'm unfamiliar with how processes are killed in Windows. In Linux, a "warm" kill sends a signal (15) which the process can handle by instantiating a signal handler. A cold kill is signal (9) which the OS handles by killing the process forcefully.

How can I "kill" a process in Windows? How is it handled by OS and by the process? What actions does OS perform? Is there a cross-platform way of responding to a kill/close request?

Solution 1:

"End Task" (and taskkill) appears to post a WM_CLOSE message to the program's windows. (The same is done when you click the × "Close" button.) If the program does not exit in some time, user gets prompted to end the program forcefully.

"Kill Process" and taskkill /f use TerminateProcess().

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