Process not releasing resources - Help need from Oracle Gurus

I have just started working in an enviornment (Oracle 8.1.7 on Windows Enviornment) where the application(Atlas) is poorly designed and it leaves a lot of processes live and does not dissconnect them after the process has completed. As a result a lot of resources are used up every day and the only solution that was been using is shutting down the server every day and restarting every day automatically(scheduled). Additionally some days the server does not shutdown because of some process not responding. Does any of the Oracle Guru's have any suggestion(other than redesign) for the following:
1) finding the processes that are not required so they can be eliminated(killed)
2) finding the process that does not allow oracle to shutdown and how can we address them (include the process part of the script) so that Oracle can shutdown.

Try this thread

And if this doesn't explain it all, try searching for "ORAKILL"

HTH,
Erik :D