Task Manager won't load.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim H.
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim H.

Task Manager (XP Home Edition) won't run by any of the following methods:

Right-clicking the Task Bar
Ctrl-Alt-Del
Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Double-clicking on the file itself (taskmgr.exe) in the system32 folder.

There are no symptoms at all when any of these methods are used. Nothing
runs at all - no windows - nada.

However, when I drag a copy of taskmgr.exe to the desktop and double-click
on it, I get the following error message:

"Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have
the appropriate permissions to access the item."

I am logged in as "Administrator."

I've gone through Microsoft's articles 913623 and 414227. I do not get the
mentioned "Task Manager has been disabled by your Administrator" message and
I do not have the DisableTaskMgr registry entry.

I just ran SpyBot S&D and the latest CCleaner. Still no change.

I'm now at the limit of my ingenuity. What should I check next?
 
Task Manager (XP Home Edition) won't run by any of the following methods:

Right-clicking the Task Bar
Ctrl-Alt-Del
Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Double-clicking on the file itself (taskmgr.exe) in the system32 folder.

There are no symptoms at all when any of these methods are used. Nothing
runs at all - no windows - nada.

However, when I drag a copy of taskmgr.exe to the desktop and double-click
on it, I get the following error message:

"Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have
the appropriate permissions to access the item."

I am logged in as "Administrator."

I've gone through Microsoft's articles 913623 and 414227. I do not get the
mentioned "Task Manager has been disabled by your Administrator" message and
I do not have the DisableTaskMgr registry entry.

I just ran SpyBot S&D and the latest CCleaner. Still no change.

I'm now at the limit of my ingenuity. What should I check next?
Click to expand...

TM ia s frequent target for malicious software. The malicious
software like to prevent things from running that will help you find
and remove the malicious software. The malicious software will not
let the taskmgr.exe process run so you can see if you can fool it.

Navigate to c:\windows\system32 and make a copy of taskmgr.exe and
call it jimh.exe (or something you can remember), then double click
(launch) jimh.exe and see if TM opens.

If jimh.exe opens TM, your system is infected.

The disabled by system administrator message may also indicate an
infection, but that is not the same thing. Either situation can be
remedied.

Perform some scans for malicious software, then fix any remaining
issues:

Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware
detection programs:

Malwarebytes (MBAM): http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS): http://www.superantispyware.com/

They can be uninstalled later if desired.

If you are still having issues, the solution that does not involve
trying things that might work depend on your system information:

To eliminate questions and guessing, please provide additional
information about your system.

Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

msinfo32

Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select
All, Copy and then paste the information back here.

There will be some personal information (like System Name and User
Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just
delete it from the pasted information.
 
Your solution seems to be running a registry script called "taskmgrfix.reg."
I am leerly of running things from sources I know nothing about and that do
something I know not what. Do you have any personal experience using this
file?
 
Jose, thanks for your interest in my problem.

Renaming the file caused the message "Windows cannot access the specified
device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access
the item." to appear. Interestingly, Windows wouldn't let me rename the file
back to taskmgr.exe; it said that there was already a file by that name.
Seems that whenever taskmgr.exe is renamed or deleted, a new one pops up in
its place; I've never seen that behavior before. However, when I try to run
that new file, I get no response, not even the aforementioned message (this
is the same behavior I got when trying to run taskmgr.exe even before I
renamed it.)

Will malwarebytes and superantispyware work where spybot and Ccleaner have
not?

Here is the info you asked for:

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name REESE
System Manufacturer Gateway
System Model ESSEX2
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2399 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp. RG84510A.15A.0037.P15.0304012013, 4/1/2003
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name REESE\Kathy
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 192.23 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.20 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
 
Jose, thanks for your interest in my problem.

Renaming the file caused the message "Windows cannot access the specified
device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access
the item." to appear. Interestingly, Windows wouldn't let me rename the file
back to taskmgr.exe; it said that there was already a file by that name.
Seems that whenever taskmgr.exe is renamed or deleted, a new one pops up in
its place; I've never seen that behavior before. However, when I try to run
that new file, I get no response, not even the aforementioned message (this
is the same behavior I got when trying to run taskmgr.exe even before I
renamed it.)

Will malwarebytes and superantispyware work where spybot and Ccleaner have
not?

Here is the info you asked for:

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name REESE
System Manufacturer Gateway
System Model ESSEX2
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2399 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp. RG84510A.15A.0037.P15.0304012013, 4/1/2003
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name REESE\Kathy
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 192.23 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.20 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Click to expand...

It is risky to download things that offer no explanation about what is
going to happen, what to do if it does not work and how to recover if
things get worse.

There are lots of things you can try, you need to do things that work.

I did not say to rename taskmgr.exe - make a copy :). Since you had
the confusion I will change my instructions to be more clear.
Deleting or renaming will result in the behavior you describe.

TM is a protected Windows file, so if you delete it or rename one of
them, Windows File Protection will notice that and quickly and
silently replace it (if WFP is working properly) and put a message
like this in the System Event Log:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Windows File Protection
Event Category: None
Event ID: 64002
Description:
File replacement was attempted on the protected system file c:\windows
\system32\taskmgr.exe. This file was restored to the original version
to maintain system stability. The file version of the system file is
5.1.2600.5512.

Perhaps your malware tools removed an infection, but sometimes there
are leftovers that modify the registry to keep thing from working.
The scanning tools can't tell if the change was real or not, so it
will leave it. What you see is fairly common - TM is a popular
target. So is cmd.exe.

Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

cmd

Click OK and if a command window opens, type exit in the window to
close it. What happens?

No single scanning program knows everything and MBAM and SAS are well
respected and I always start with them to help get the system to some
kind of known state. I would run them first, and then resolve any
remaining issues. Download, install, update, full scan.

Thanks for the msinfo32 info - it looks fine from here (and now we
know a whole lot more).
 
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