Task Manager & Registry Editor disabled?

[RC-1162]

My task manager and registry editor funtions have been mysteriously disabled. The exact error message is:

Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator

Registry Editor has been disabled by your administrator

This problem is affecting my laptop, which runs XP Pro and also my desktop, which runs Vista Home. I don't understand how they could suddenly get disabled, and also how BOTH my computers have the same problem. I log on using the Admin acct. on both the systems.

 

Can anyone tell me what's wrong and how I can re-enable them? What exactly would cause this?

[acdcfanbill]

Sounds like it might be a virus/trojan/malware.

[RC-1162]

That's what I thought at first too, but the Vista is a brand new desktop only 2-3 months old. I haven't installed anything on it. This problem just asired recently. Is there no way to reverse it?

[Q]

First of all, what sort of antivirus and antispyware/malware software do you have installed?

 

Secondly, use this free online scanner to find out if you have any viruses, trojans or worms.

 

Thirdly, download, install, update and run these two scanners: SuperAntiSpyware; Ad-Aware.

 

These three scanners should tell you if you have any kind of malware. You'll have to use all three to be sure.

[HK-42]

Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator

 

I had this before from a virus I removed, I will try to find the fix that I used.

 

EDIT: Try this

 

Method 2: Change the Task Manager Option through the Run line

 

Click on Start, Run and type the following command exactly and press Enter

 

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

 

Source