Cannot Disable Task Manager Block Group Policy

Branson Hodgin 1 Reputation point
2023-02-09T15:10:56.1766667+00:00

A while back (not sure how long ago) we had a Group Policy set in place for our RDS users that blocked them from accessing Task Manager. The policy I am referring to is called 'Remove Task Manager' and can be found at User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Ctrl + Alt + Del Options. More recently we set this policy to not configured, ran a gpupdate /force on the affected user's workstations, and they were still being blocked from Task Manager. We even went as far as disabling this policy which overrules the enabled status and they still cannot access Task Manager. Even more interesting, I added a new laptop to the domain and signed in with a user that had never signed into this laptop before. So this profile has never been locally cached on the laptop. This profile that I was testing had the same security groups/permissions as a user who was denied on their laptop from using Task Manager. This test profile was able to access Task Manager locally on the laptop and during an RDP session on our RDS server. The user who had previously been denied from using Task Manager on their laptop signed into this new laptop for the first time, and was able to run Task Manager. Has anyone seen this issue or can shed some light on what is causing this and how we can resolve it?

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  1. Michael Taylor 56,946 Reputation points
    2023-02-09T15:21:59.8066667+00:00

    Go to one of the impacted machines, go to the local GP and check to see if the policy is set locally. Local policies override domain policies if set.

    While you said you forced a GP update on the local machine (right?) I wonder if something is getting cached. If a user logs off and logs back on then do they have the option now?

    If a new user logs into a machine that is having the issue then do they have the option now?

    Finally, check the registry HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableTaskMgr and see if it exists and what it might be set to. If it is set then remove it and reboot.

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