My task manager won’t come up and stay up. It comes up for a brief second when I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, but then it disappears either on its oown or when I move the mouse.
Help 
Sounds odd. WinXP, right? Have you tried rebooting? COuld be your’ comp running out of system resources and going crazy as a result.
Also, have you tried the traditional spyware and virus crackdowns?
The telltale sign of a virus. There’s too many of them out there to do this to even begin to guess which one you have. Get the latest update of a virus scanning program (and spyware removal program as well) and run them.
a couple things to check: does regedit also close when you try to run it? and can you keep the task manager open in safe mode? if both of these are yes, it’s definitely a virus.
Perhaps try killing the process manually in Command Line? Does windows have a “term” or “kill” command?
Also, perhaps try installing a 3rd party application that does the same thing as task manager, but is not official. Maybe the virus, or whatever it is, is only set up to block the official microsoft TaskManager.
I tried searching for “Task Manager Clone” for something that would function the same way, and all i found was <a href=“http://www.fileheaven.com/AnVir-Task-Manager/download/6320.htm”>this</a> i’m sure you can find something better.
I forgot about this thread.
Anyway, zepp, regedit doesnt come up.
Furthermore, I don’t know how to start up in safemode, I haven’t been able to figure it out on this computer. I’ve got a HP pavillion, running windows xp. Any hints?
Just keep hitting that F8 button while windows is loading, and you should get the option to come up.
Maybe you should try to access it from the Start Menu?
Access what from the start menu…
I think she means safe mode, which is impossible since it is a boot option…
It is a virus, one that closes key appiclations used in the removal of itself. You have to boot up in safemode (tap F8 during the bootup process) and run a virus scanner to get rid of if. If you ran it in normal windows, the virus scanner would either not be able to detect it (which is probably the current case) or would not be able to fix or remove it as the file is being used by a number of processes. I’d also recommend running your spyware removal program while in safemode as well.
I tried F8 and it didn’t work
More hints plz.
Well, you have to get to safe mode. =\
Is this a clean pack of XP? (meaning, did you install windows XP or upgrade?) Because if you upgraded to windows XP from windows NT, you may not have Safe Mode, because i know Windows NT has no safe mode.
Also, some computers disable some of the function keys. My IBM Aptiva does, and i have to press F2 to access windows boot options, instead of F8. Try other function keys.
Otherwise, try running MSCONF or MSCONFIG from your start menu:
Start > Run > MSCONF or MSCONFIG (whichever works)
This will edit your boot options, and other stuff too, so don’t shit around in it.
At the top of this dialog should be a tab called “BOOT.INI”
Click “BOOT.INI” tab > Set “Timeout” dialog to 30 seconds > Check /SAFEBOOT
Click “OK”
Click “RESTART”
Delete the virus, or whatever.
Since we edited to bootconf of windows, windows will continually boot in safe mode until we turn the options we chose off. Once you have finished removing the virus, IN SAFE MODE, run MSCONF or MSCONFIG again, and uncheck /SAFEMODE in the “boot.ini” tab.
That should do it. If not, uh, theres still some stuff we can try, but booting in safe mode should allow you to remove the virus. At the very least, try to learn the name of the virus, if you do not know it already.
Lol, I don’t think msconfig is coming up because of the virus. Is there any other way to get to it?
…holy crap.
>_> do you know what the name of the virus is?
Nope.
Well, unless it has a name tag or something.
Okay, I have an idea. In spybot search and destroy, when running the advanced mode, under tools, go into the “system startup”. See if you can find something that looks weird (the virus) and uncheck it. Then restart and see if it get’s reloaded (spybot also shows the running processes and let’s you kill them, but usually if you kill these viruses when they’re running they’ll just come right back).
There’s also a delete button. Should I delete the entries from this menu or what?
Uhhh, not yet. Only delete it if you are CERTAIN that it is a virus. Just uncheck it. Even if it looks supsicious, only delete if it is CONFIRMED.
I once almost deleted my nvidia card’s drivers because nvidia likes wierd names for its drivers. Just to give an idea on how these things could end up.
TO be honest, if you can uncheck all suspicious things, and are then able to run a full scan with spybot, you shouldn’t need to delete it at all, since the full sweep will do that for you.
There is an app in 95 and 98 which is called Tasks which is can be ran just by typing taskman in the Run Box, but that is just Like The Windows task bar.
Nutter
Useless I know.
Ok?
Anyway, did epic’s suggestion work?