Task Manager Inoperative

Lately my CTRL-ALT-DEL has not been functioning, also
RClick and trying to bring up Task Manager does nothing. I
read other posts concerning a '..has been disabled by your
administrator...' issues some have but I am not receiving
that message nor any other messages (error or otherwise).
The two actions simply produce no response whatsoever.

I also have Ad-Aware and have run it but it doesn't seem
to help. Seems some spyware or something keeps popping up
browser windows when the system is left on but unattended
for a while. I come back and have a screen full of ads and
windows and sometimes dozens of download dialogues asking
for confirmation (Thank goodness I set securities to
forbid these without confirmation).

I can't ID or locate the culprit so any assistance would
be appreciated.

 

AdAware does not help against pop-ups. It only removes Ad-Ware and Spy-Ware.

To prevent pop-ups follow this instructions
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/communicate/stopspam.asp

Install and use some personal firewall software (anything is better then
nothing)...

 

I'm not concerned specifically with the pop-ups in this
post. i just want to know why my Task manager's not
accessible and how it can be fixed.

Thanks for the link though.