Stop Running

In case multiple individuals have access to your computer, you might want to prevent them from accessing specific location, or even running programs. This is exactly the purpose of Stop Running, which lets you lock multiple programs so they’re only accessed with your consent.

First thing you notice is that the application saves you the entire time and effort needed to go through a setup process, so it’s possible to carry it around on a thumb drive to use wherever needed. It doesn’t need to make any changes to system registry entries, so the health status of the computer you use it on remains intact.

It presents its set of features in an intuitive, yet compact window, which only needs to be brought up to lock, or unlock applications. Unfortunately, it can’t be used as a process which runs in the background or tray area to easily bring the window up. However, this can be bypassed by assigning a hotkey command to its shortcut from the default Properties panel to be able to launch it regardless of location.

It would have been useful to be able to lock applications from the context menu, but this is not a possible operation. You simply need to use the built-in browse dialog to load any EXE file. Sadly, dropping it over the main window has no effect. An alternative method is to paste the file path and name inside the input field.

Locking is done at the press of a button, and so is unlocking. If you’re not sure whether a program is locked, the status can easily be checked through a dedicated function. What’s missing, though, is a password protection option, because anyone can change the status of an app.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Stop Running is a good application for preventing others from accessing programs you don’t want them to. It can easily fit on a thumb drive to use on other computers. However, it would have been useful to see a few more protection options.