computor says admin disabled task manager.....how do you turn it back on? thanks

On Sat, 3 Mar 2012 15:43:26 +0000, PM1955 wrote:

computor says admin disabled task manager.....how do you turn it back on? thanks

Almost certainly you are infected with malware. What anti-virus and
anti-spyware programs do you run?

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

That's not what it really says, is it?

If you did not disable the Task Manager yourself on purpose, something did it for you and that something would be malicious software.

The advice from Seyar Qaderi might get your Task Manager working again, but it has been my experience that if you have that problem, you probably have some other problems that you have not discovered yet.

Merely enabling the Task Manager may fix the immediate symptom of the problem, but you need to fix the problem - not just the symptom.   Your system did not get that way by itself, and if you are running XP Home, you will not get far with advice to use the Group Policy Editor, since it is not included in XP Home.

When I see those kinds of error, here is what I recommend (in addition to the other advice):

If you are seeing things like this:

You do not have sufficient security privileges to restore your system.

The System Restore tab is missing from My Computer Properties.

System Restore has been turned off by group policy.  To turn on System Restore, contact your domain Administrator.

The System Restore tab is available, but the Turn off System Restore (disabled by Group Policy) box is greyed out.

Task Manager has been disabled by your System Administrator.

Registry Editor has been disabled by your System Administrator.

Task Manager has been disabled by Group Policy.

Registry Editor has been disabled by Group Policy.

The command prompt has been disabled by your administrator.  Press any key to continue...

The operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.  Please contact your system administrator.

The "Run" option is missing from the Start menu.

The "Log Off..." option is missing from the Start Menu.

Add or Remove Programs has been restricted.  Please check with your administrator.

The usual advice is something along the lines of "something has been disabled in Group Policy...", and that is probably true that something has been disabled, but you need to know what that something is and what to do about it.

If you are using XP Home, you will not get far with advice to use the Group Policy Editor since there is no Group Policy Editor in XP Home and that really doesn't tell you where to look in the Group Policies even if you could run Group Policy Editor.

You need a comprehensive solution that will work for all versions of XP and do not require hunting around in the Group Policy Editor or the registry to find where things are that might have been disabled.

Unless you disabled these things on purpose, the chances are good that your system has a malicious software infection.  The malware knows what tools you are going to use to try and find and remove it (like Task Manager), so the malware disables the things you are most likely to use and keeps them from running so you can't find the malicious software and remove it.

If your system has this kind of affliction, whatever malicious software tools you are currently using or have been using have failed to protect your system so you may want to expand your malicious software prevention and detection horizons to prevent these kinds of afflictions in the first place.

The malicious software will be happiest to fool you into thinking you need to so something drastic to fix your system - like a Repair Install, System Restore point, or a total reinstallation of XP.  That is what it would like you to do, but such measures are not required.

You need to fix the immediate problem of the tools not working, then scan your system for malicious software when you are done.

No matter what kind of malicious software scanning tools you have already used, they are unlikely to fix this problem because they cannot tell if the changes to your system were on purpose (you or an Administrator made them) or some malicious software changed them, so the scanning tools will leave these things alone (this is usually a good thing).

If your system is afflicted in this manner, there are probably other things that also don't work - like Registry Editor, System Restore and Command Prompt, so fix them all at once even if you haven't found out they are broken yet.

These registry commands will remove the registry entries that are stopping the programs from opening.  Even if the registry entries are not there, these commands are safe to run and will work for all versions of XP.

Before making any changes to your registry, back up the registry with this popular free tool:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/erunt.html

Open notepad to create a new text file:

Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

notepad

Click OK to open a new notepad file.

Copy and paste the following lines of bold text into the new notepad file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

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

"DisableTaskMgr"=-

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

"DisableRegistryTools"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System]

"DisableCMD"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

"DisableTaskMgr"=-

[HKEY_USERS.default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

"DisableTaskMgr"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"DisableCAD"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore]

"DisableConfig"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore]

"DisableSR"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoRun"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoRun"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoClose"=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoClose"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoSetTaskbar"=-

Save the new text file with a .reg extension to your desktop or someplace you can remember with a name you can remember, something like:

enableit.reg

After saving the file, close notepad.

Locate the enableit.reg file on your desktop and double click it.

Alternatively, you can right click the enableit.reg file, choose Merge or Open With... and select the Registry Editor.

Respond in the affirmative to the question... Are you sure you want to add the information to the registry?

You should then see a message that the information was successfully entered into the registry.

Reboot your system and test.

You can remove the enableit.reg file when you are done.

If the Registry Editor has also been disabled, we will have to fix that first (not a problem).

No matter what else you are using for malicious software protection, do this:

Download, install, update and do at least one full scan with these free malware detection programs:

Malwarebytes (MBAM):  http://malwarebytes.org/

SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS):  http://www.superantispyware.com/

These full scans can take a long time, but you really need to run them.  SAS will probably just report a bunch of Internet tracking cookies, but you can delete those.  Once you have done at least one full scan, you can do the quick scans in the future to save time and save the full scans for when you have more time or are really suspicious of a system infection.

They can be uninstalled later if desired.

In 1985, there were 11 known computer viruses.  Today, there are more than 70,000 and new threats are detected every day.  Always update your virus definitions before performing a scan.

Reboot your computer and troubleshoot remaining issues.

thanks so much I'll give it a whirl!

Hi,

Follow methods below to enable Task Manager back.

Method 1:

1- Log On to your PC as an Administrator

2- Click Start > Run then copy and past following

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

and click "Ok" then restart your PC.

Method 2:

1- Log On as an Administrator

2- Click Start > Run and type gpedit.msc and click "Ok"

3-Click on User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Ctrl+Alt+Del

4- now in right side find Remove Task Manager and double click on it and select Disable or Not Configured and click "Ok" and close gpedit.msc

5- Again open "Run" and type gpupdate

Restart your PC.

Hope this helps,