What the heck is going on here?
I’m running Windows XP Professional on a Dell Inspiron laptop with a Pentium 4 chip. I have AVG anti-virus installed, and it is current.
When I do a Control-Alt-Delete, instead of the usual window coming up with the usual tabs to let me see performance, processes, etc., I got a pretty much blank window showing my Internet Explorer task running with some buttons allowing me to cancel it, or switch to another process, but there is no “X” to close it at top, no tabs for anything else, and in the bottom tray there is an untitled clock witht he pic of a computer. Over bottom right, the icon does show and I can hover the mouse over it and it shows “CPU Usage: x%”
Right-clicking on this icon is the only way to get rid of the useless thing.
I’ve never seen anything like this. Anyone have any idea what happened to my Task Manager?
Thanks, and I’ll check back before I close out of here, but due to time differences, it may be tomorrow about this time before I’m back online, so don’t think I’m ignoring you.
Any time windows starts doing somethig wonky consider the possibility you may be reloading soon, backup accordingly.
Have you tried a system restore?
IF you have functional IE try heading over to www.ewido.com or Free Online Virus Scan | Trend Micro HouseCall and running an online scanner. No one AV app catches everything.
not an option?
try dropping in your XP pro disk and typing sfc /scannow
This will check your core windows files and restore them to original versions. You will probably have to reinstall some updates after this.
Whats your fragmentation look like? Heavily fragmented machines can do some very bizzare things.
I will take a look at these things, drachillix.
Too late right now, and I’m too tired. Only thing I can say at this point is my hard drive is in no way fragmented, lots of room.
Now to dig that CD out…heck, I’ve had this thing for 4 years, did it even come with all the stuff Dell sent me?
Never mind. I’ll see what happens tomorrow. Can’t thank you enough for the advice, though. Much appreciated!
Nothing bad has happened. Don’t do anything drastic.
There’s a hotkey to switch views between simple and tabbed mode; you’ve probably just pressed it by mistake. Trouble is I can’t remember what it is. I’ll find out and post again in a mo.
Ah. Simpler than I thought.
Tell me what happens when you double-click on a blank part (i.e. between the white box listing processes and the edge of the form) of the Task Manager window.
<— hangs head in shame
Keep repeating to self…there is no shame being schooled by Mangetout
I tried what you suggested and said…damn, thats exactly what he described in the OP :smack:
:smack: Mangetout you beat me again. You have the advantage of a few hours on me, so I have to get up way early to answer any tech. I knew I shouldn’t have opened the thread it’s already 7:30. Oh well.
Hi, I’m back, and thanks for the suggestion.
I THINK I tried this last night and nothing happened, but I’m not sure.
I moved the white box down into the taskbar so it wouldn’t be plastered over my browser screen and now I don’t even see the tip so I can’t drag it up on to the screen.
Anyway, I can still see, in the task bar, next to my browser icon, a blank-but-for-a-picture-of-a-computer-to-its-left block.
And I realized I was wrong, this was the Windows Security window which has a tab to g et to Task Manager or Log Off or Lock, etc. Small diff, probably.
I’ll keep playing with it and try to find out if I switched it somehow to a weird view.
Like you said, it’s not the end of the world, everything else works fine, just handy to have when I want to monitor processes or shut down a frozen app.
I really appreciate all of the suggestions… 
Correction to my correction: That apparently IS Task Manager. I went to the Help system and clicked on the “Click here to open Task Manager” and sure enough, got another blank on the task bar down below.
So it’s bypassing the first screen, which lets you choose Task Manager, etc.
Oh, well, time to surf The Straight Dope for tonight’s wonderful, arcane, and funny stuff.
Damn, Mangetout, you are a pure ^%**& genius!!! Last ditch before going on, I clicked the “Always on Top” option on the little screen icon to the RIGHT bottom, where your … what do they call that, icon tray?? is, and I could see the window again.
I pulled it up to where I could see it, and double-clicked where you said to.
VIOLA!! All the tabs appeared! Life is wonderful again.
This was a really big, big help, and it took you what, 2 minutes to discover it?
Seriously, thank you so very much.