Ctrl + ALt + Delete doesn't pop up window in XP

open control panel > user accounts > change the way users logon and log off
and uncheck
use the welcome screen
use fast user switching

FYI, You can also Right click on the task bar and select the "Task Manager" fromt here.

Or you can type Ctrl-Shift-ESC to open Task Manager too
Actually, almost forgot about virus, that can cause the Task manager to close before you even see it. try Panda's online virus scan (Free of course) at http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm

Check whether "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
System" has the REG_DWORD value "DisableTaskMgr". If yes, delete it. Some third party app might have set that value.

You will need to restart or log off to make sure that the changes take effect.

I've met your problem for some times, my solutions is to re-install windows ;)

There is a good chance you have a virus on there. Do a good scan of your computer with an updated virus program and that should clear things up. Checking "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
System" will probably only give you temp access to CTRL+ALT+DELETE because the virus will just change it back.

Thanks for all the responses. This is my mother-in-laws PC so I won't be able to check until next weekend! I did run some spyware (Adware) and it found wstools.exe. I'm louking at trying to remove that and see if that fixes the problem. The PC also runs very, very slow, It seems like something is eating up the CPU (probably the wstools.exe)

Again...the symptoms sound like a virus/malware.  The program runs onthe system (eating resources) and then kills Taskmanager to cover its tracks (you can;t see the process that is eating your resources.)

M

Just a lateral thought - you don't have a dead key on the keyboard by any chance? Try other CTRL - ALT - DEL keys?

Ok.. I removed wintools. No sign of it and I still can't get the task manager to pop up! If I right click on the tash bar and select task mananger and still nothing happens. I also checked the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
System - DisableTaskMgr

and that was set to "0" so I figure that means false???

I guess my only choice is to do a Fdisk/reformat and start over????

Will a repair necessarilly get rid of a virus if a virus program can't find it????

It may not be a virus, if the above antivirus can't find it then it is possible that some files are damaged and a repair will delete all the old system file and copy them over from the CD then you need to run windows update again to update them to the latest version.

Sorry for the delay on this. I hope to get a chance to try and work on this PC soon! I did find out that the PC has been very slow from day one!

I loaded  process E=xplorer and something called Winkulr.exe seems to be eating up all the CPU time. I can't find anything about it anywhere?????

That exe doesnot look familiar. You may want to kill that exe process

SR

I did kill it and the PC runs a little faster but still no task manager and starts up when rebooted!!!!!

Start --> run --> Type in "msconfig" and press "Enter"
goto Startup tab
Disable all the applications there except Anti-virus.Reboot the machine and check if the error occurs.
If not, then enable one at a time in the same startup tab and find the application that might cause this
at startup