My task manager has a "task manager has been disabled by the administrator" message. How did this happen and how can I correct this?
Why: if you didn't do it yourself, the news isn't good.
How to fix it: there are a couple of ways.
Let's look at this more closely.
The situation's pretty simple. If you right click on the clock in the Windows taskbar, the
Task Manager item is grayed out:
Or, if you try to run taskmgr.exe manually, you get this message:
So, how did this happen?
As we'll see in a moment, there are settings you can access as an administrator that would allow you to disable and enable Task Manager in this way.
You didn't do that, you say?
Then a virus probably did.
Disabling Task Manager is one way viruses try to make it harder for you to deal with their infections. Before proceeding any further, you should
run a complete and up-to-date anti-virus scan of your machine. It's possible, perhaps even likely, that you've been infected.
Once you come back virus-free, you can proceed with the fix.
If you have Windows XP Pro, there's a nifty user interface to directly edit the setting you want to repair. Click
Start, then click
Run and type in
gpedit.msc:
And press
OK. This runs the Group Policy Editor.
Once in the Group Policy Editor, expand in turn:
- User Configuration
- Administrative Templates
- System
- Ctrl+Alt+Del Options
You should see something much like this:
Double click on
Remove Task Manager to change its setting:
It should be enough to click on
Not Configured and then
OK and Task Manager is available once again.
If you don't have Windows XP Pro, then you'll need to edit the registry manually.
Click
Start, then click
Run, type in
regedit, and click on
OK.
Expand these registry keys in turn:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Software
- Microsoft
- Windows
- CurrentVersion
- Policies
- System
You should see something similar to this:
Right Click on the
DisableTaskMgr item:
Click on
Delete, confirm that you want to delete, and Task Manager should be available once again.
One thing to note is that it's quite possible that if you're in an environment managed by a centralized policy, these settings may have no effect. Your IT administrator may set things up so as to disable Task Manager, and other things as well at the domain level. You'll need to ask them if this is the case.
Fix Task Manager. Windows System Recovery Tool
Task Manager Fix is a FREEWARE system utility to fix task manager disabled by spywares, trojans and displays error message :
Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator, which blocks access to Windows Task Manager.
When you try to open
Windows Task Manager, by pressing
CTRL+ALT+DEL the following error often appear:
Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator
INSTANT solution to common problem
Task Manager Not Working
This error message appears due to restriction placed in the
Windows Registry. One can easily enable
Task Manager by editing some registry settings. For a normal user editing registry is not easy and a bit risky.
Task Manager Fix is designed to enable disabled Task Manager. Download the
FREE Task Manager Fix tool to quickly enable Task Manager. Handy windows system recovery tool to remove task manager restrictions and effective solution to the problem Task Manager not Working.
This download (Task Manager Fix v2.0)
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Freeware is copyrighted computer software which is made available for use free of charge, for an unlimited time, as opposed to shareware where the user is required to pay (e.g. after some trial period or for additional functionality). More info at
Wikipedia.