Many times when working on a computer that has been infected with a virus, trojan, or piece of spyware I find myself with the Task Manager being disabled. Malware creators like to disable Task Manager so it makes solving the problem and removing the issue difficult.

If this happens you'll normally have to edit the Windows registry to fix the problem. A restriction has been placed on the user to not allow them to run Task Manager, this might be ok in an office environment where the IT department wants to control things, but in a home office this can cause major problems trying to fix a malware or virus issue.

Listed below you will find the many ways to reenable Task Manager along with an automatic method that works wonders.

To open the Task Manager, you normally would do one of the following:


CODE
* Press CTRL-ALT-DEL on the keyboard
* Press CTRL-SHIFT-ESC on the keyboard
* Right-click on a blank area on the start bar and choose Task Manager
* Click on Start, Run and type TASKMGR in the run box and press Enter



First we'll begin with the various registry modification methods for correcting this problem.

Method 1 - Using the Group Policy Editor in Windows XP Professional

CODE
1. Click Start, Run, type gpedit.msc and click OK.
2. Under User Configuration, Click on the plus (+) next to Administrative Templates
3. Click on the plus (+) next tSystem, then click on Ctrl+Alt+Delete Options
4. Find Remove Task Manager in the right-hand pane and double click on it
5. Choose the option "Not Configured" and click Ok.
6. Close the Group Policy Window


Method 2: Change the Task Manager Option through the Run line

CODE
1. Click on Start, Run and type the following command exactly and press Enter

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f


Method 3: Change Task Manager through a Registry REG file

CODE
1. Click on Start, Run, and type Notepad and press Enter
2. Copy and paste the information between the dotted lines into Notepad and save it to your desktop as taskmanager.reg

------------------------------------
Win[b]dows Registry Editor Version 5.00[/b]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"DisableTaskMgr"=dword:00000000
-------------------------------------

3. Double click on the taskmanager.reg file to enter the information into the Windows registry


Method 4: Delete the restriction in the registry manually

CODE
1. Click on Start, Run, and type REGEDIT and press Enter
2. Navigate to the following branch

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ System

3. In the right pane, find and delete the value named DisableTaskMgr
4. Close the registry editor


Method 5: Download and Run FixTaskManager program

CODE
1. Click on the following links and download the program FixTaskManager to your Desktop

http://www.recoverdatatools.com/tools/download.php?id=1

http://www.pchell.com/downloads/TaskManagerFix.exe

Backup Location
2. Double-click on the file FixTaskManager on your desktop and run it


Method 6 : using .vbs extension

CODE
In notepad, copy/paste the following script, and save the file with a .vbs extension, then run it :

'Enable/Disable Task Manager
'By PatheticCockroach - based on an idea by Doug Knox
'© 2005 MPAM Rebooted - http://patheticcockroach.com
'This code may be freely distributed/modified as long as it remains free of charge

Option Explicit
'Declare variables
Dim WSHShell, rr, rr2, MyBox, val, val2, ttl, toggle
Dim jobfunc, itemtype

On Error Resume Next

Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
val = "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableTaskMgr"
val2 = "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableTaskMgr"
itemtype = "REG_DWORD"
jobfunc = "Task Manager is now "
ttl = "Result"

'reads the registry key value.
rr = WSHShell.RegRead (val)
rr2 = WSHShell.RegRead (val2)

toggle=1
If (rr=1 or rr2=1) Then toggle=0

If toggle = 1 Then
WSHShell.RegWrite val, 1, itemtype
WSHShell.RegWrite val2, 1, itemtype
Mybox = MsgBox(jobfunc & "disabled.", 4096, ttl)
Else
WSHShell.RegDelete val
WSHShell.RegDelete val2
Mybox = MsgBox(jobfunc & "enabled.", 4096, ttl)
End If



graduated.gif