Can't open task manager

[John Flynn]

Task manager does not open (Windows XP Home sp1a) when I
use either ctrl-alt-del or right click on task bar and
select task manager.

 

[Dragonteeth]

Task manager does not open (Windows XP Home sp1a) when I
use either ctrl-alt-del or right click on task bar and
select task manager.

1) fyi -to run it outright, you can go to Start, then Run, and type
taskmgr.exe and press enter... this will launch Task Manager if it's
registry entries are still healthy.

2) Does Ctrl-shift-Esc not work either?

3) See http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm Click on the letter "T" to
bring up the T-related issues, then scroll down to your exact problem.
She's got lots of other great info there... bookmark her site for sure.

Regards!

 

[Larry Samuels MS-MVP XP \(Shell/User\)]

Special thanks go to Doug Knox MS-MVP for the following workaround:

Do the following:

Click Start, Run and enter CMD to open a Command Prompt window.
Then copy and paste the following commands into the Command Prompt window.

COPY %WINDIR%\System32\Taskmgr.exe %WINDIR%\System32\Taskmgr1.exe
COPY %WINDIR%\REGEDIT.EXE %WINDIR%\REGEDIT.COM
COPY %WINDIR%\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSCONFIG.EXE
%WINDIR%\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSCONFIG1.EXE

Then you can use the new file names to get into these utilities to use them
to help your troubleshooting.

--
Larry Samuels MS-MVP (Windows-Shell/User)
Associate Expert
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://home.earthlink.net/~larrysamuels/WS2003FAQ.htm
Expert Zone -

 

[Dragonteeth]

Special thanks go to Doug Knox MS-MVP for the following workaround:

Do the following:

Click Start, Run and enter CMD to open a Command Prompt window.
Then copy and paste the following commands into the Command Prompt window.

COPY %WINDIR%\System32\Taskmgr.exe %WINDIR%\System32\Taskmgr1.exe
COPY %WINDIR%\REGEDIT.EXE %WINDIR%\REGEDIT.COM
COPY %WINDIR%\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSCONFIG.EXE
%WINDIR%\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSCONFIG1.EXE

Then you can use the new file names to get into these utilities to use them
to help your troubleshooting.

--
Larry Samuels MS-MVP (Windows-Shell/User)
Associate Expert
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://home.earthlink.net/~larrysamuels/WS2003FAQ.htm
Expert Zone -

That *could* work if it was %SYSTEMROOT%, instead of %WINDIR%

WINDIR is the variable's name, but Systemroot calls to it's value.