Windows Xp Task Manager doesnt come up (ctrl+Alt+Del)

Have you gone on the internet or opened any email or done any chatting with that machine? That particular symptom is characteristic of any of a number of virus/worm/trojan infections. I'd chase down that possibility before looking much further. First, update your own resident antivirus and run a full system scan. For the most effective shot at finding and cleaning any infection, scan once while in Safe Mode, then reboot normally and immediately on reboot scan again in normal mode.

If you have no antivirus, or an expired subscription to a paid antivirus, either renew your subscription, or uninstall the expired version and acquire an antivirus which can be updated to current engine and pattern files. Any of the major name brand applications will work fine. If for some reason you don't wish to pay for a subscription, the following are downloadable free antivirus applications from reputable vendors.

AntiVir Free Personal Edition

Avast! 4 Free Home Edition

AVG Free Personal Edition

The free versions offer adequate basic protection, but will lack certain configuration and convenience features common to paid antivirus apps. Your choice, but whatever, get, update, configure and maintain (per the app's instructions) a current antivirus before going any further, and have it run full system scans as described above.

If that resolves the problem, fine, but if not, I recommend you try STINGER. See this TUTORIAL. Again, I recommend you scan once while in safe mode, rebooting normally and immediately performing another scan.

Following Stinger, I recommend you perform at least 2 of the following free online virus scans (with your own resident antivirus disabled):

Trend Micro Free Online Scan

Panda Free Online Scan

BitDefender Free Online Scan

Symantec Free Online Scan

Kaspersky Free Online Scan

StopSign Free Online Scan

RAV Free Online Scan

McAfee Free Online Scan

For general yuckware removal tips and tools, see This Topic

Re: Windows Xp Task Manager doesnt come up (ctrl+Alt+Del)

This is most likely linked to a registry key. If you get an error message that says "Task Manager has been disabled by the administrator", then it's definatly a registry key. You can remove such a registry key through Ad-Aware SE on http://www.lavasoftusa.com but you can also do it manually.