Hi all,
How would a person feel when there’s a virus on a system, when he cant access Task manager to end the virus process or access regedit to zoom it to hell? Well, thats exactly what happened to me. All my college computers were inflicted with so many viruses, that even a trio of Norton, Avast and NOD32 couldn’t come to the rescue. And Task Manager was blocked. So was regedit. Apparently, “Task Manager has been disabled by your Administrator” and “Registry editing has been blocked by your Administrator“. My first reaction was to call up the admin and use a few well chosen swear words.
But thankfully, it didn’t come to that, since Windows was Windows, and everything had a back door or two 
. So what do you do to re enable task manager and/or regedit when your admin has blocked them? Follow the few simple steps below -
- Hit Windows+R to bring up Run (Start>Run)
- Type in gpedit.msc and click OK
- For regedit : In the Group Policy window, browse to User Configuration>System and voila, you should have a small entry named “Prevent access to registry editing tools“. Double click that entry. Check the Disabled option, and click OK. Your regedit.exe has just been enabled
. - For Task Manager : In the Group Policy window, browse to User Configuration>System>Ctrl+Alt+Del Options and you’ll have an entry titled “Remove Task Manager“. Double click that entry. Check the Disabled option, and click OK. Your Task Manager has just been enabled . Go ahead, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and rejoice .
Thats it guys, I hope this has been useful. Oh by the way, this post was intended for purely educational uses. Any damage you create by fiddling with these options are your own fault! Toodles!
UPDATE
gpedit.msc (Group Policy Editor) is not available on Windows XP Home. But it can be installed, by copying the files from a Windows XP Professional system. I’ve included a file which contains the 2 files required to install gpedit.msc on a Windows XP Home PC. Download the file, unzip it, and read the howto.txt file, which contains the instructions. Click here to download the file. Big thanks to Atar for this!
Technorati Tags: gpedit, taskmanager, windows task manager, enable taskmanager, gpedit for home
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September 30th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I think I will leave mine as as far as I know I have no known viruses at the moment.
Your college does need taking to task over this in my opinion excuse the pun re post.
Whilst in the tips mode how do I get code for a banner to put on a site if you have the time of course.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Cheers Mick.. Will do your request in a day or two.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Much obliged Mohan no big rush ok
March 10th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
This helped me to overcome my virus which had blocked my own regedit even though i am the Administrator
March 31st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
if virus came means even i do it in the gpeit it will still don’t allow to open the regedit .
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I seem to be having the same problem with my computer though when I try to run gpedit.msc it tells me “Windows cannot find ‘gpedit.msc’ make sure I typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the start button, and then click search”
I am running ms windowsXP sp2. And I think I am in dire need of HELP!
April 4th, 2008 at 1:09 am
thank u very much to give here a efficient solution.i go through many solution pages but i found there is a very-2 easy way to solv the problem.i feel much confidence by removing this virus(attack by yahoo messenger) and enabling regedit and taskmgr..
thx u very much for this help..:)
April 4th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
through this i am able to solve the problem of the user. the task manager was not coming. thanks for the website to tell me how to edit in the gpedit.msc.
thanks,
Sumeeraj
April 5th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
@ Sumeeraj, Sachin, Venkat : Glad that you could overcome the problem
Cheers 
@Attar and this is a common… : Please do not include the quotes. You should type in -
gpedit.msc
Try doing it from MS DOS as well.
Cheers,
Mohan
April 6th, 2008 at 4:01 am
I wasn’t useing the quotes but I am useing winXP home edition. I do not believe that gpedit.exe is avalible for this edition. I still havent figured out how to get my task manager to work.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
It is not gpedit.exe, but is gpedit.msc
Was that the mistake?
April 8th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Unfortunately this wasn’t the problem it was just a typo on my part with the reply. Though I did retry gpedit.msc in the off chance that I messed that up. But I am still getting the same error pop up when I try it. I read on another blog somewhere that gpedit.msc is not available on XP home edition. I am starting to believe it too. =(
Plus I have no idea how to even use MS DOS I tried to run a search on MS DOS under the start menu and it found nothing.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Atar,
Try opening it from MSDOS. To open MSDOS -
Start>Run>Command>OK
At the prompt type -
gpedit.msc
and press Enter.
April 9th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I tried it in DOS it says this: GPEDIT.msc is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Sorry I’m giving you so much trouble with this….its so frustrating. Thank you for trying to help though I REALLY appreciate it!
April 9th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Atar,
You were right, the Group Policy Editor is not available by default in XP Home…
However, nothing is impossible.
I’ve sent you a mail with the required files and instructions. Go through it, and follow the instructions.
gpedit.msc will be installed once you follow those instructions.
After that, follow the instructions in this post to enable Task Manager.
Do comment and tell me if it worked or not.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Ok I got the file unzipped but I still can not open it because I can not open a .dll file. I tried to use the web to find a way to open it but it keeps wanting me to buy RegCure. Is there a way to open it without paying $? I think I contracted this virus from trying to DL a way to open a .rar file. Im kind of afraid to try it again with .dll
April 9th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Read the instructions properly. You dont have to open the dll file at all!
Read the howto.txt file…. It has all the instructions
May 6th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Thanks
June 11th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I am only a Class XII student and due to some unknown reason to me my Task Manager was not opening up but thanks to U I am now able to access my Task Manger and can now delete the virus files that is affecting my computer.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
thanx a lot i was wondering here and there gooling .. sttuffs n i got the easiest solution here ….
thanx dude
supriti
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
thanks alot. and i have more than one problem. I end a process in Taskmanager its end and again back it up within 30 seconds. how to fix it
August 11th, 2008 at 9:48 pm