Fix Windows Task Manager With Missing Tabs and Menu
Author: Raymond2 Nov
Many of you should be familiar with Windows Task Manager. Since Windows 98, the combination of Control+Alt+Delete key is the probably only thing to do when a program hung. You are presented with a “Close Program” window to terminate the application that is not responding or you can just hit the same combination again to soft reboot the computer. In NT based Windows, pressing the hotkey would directly invoke the Task Manager. The Task Manager is a program used to provide information about the processes and programs running on a computer, as well as the general status of the computer. It can also be used to terminate processes and programs, as well as change the processes’ priority.
As useful as it is, there’s a very weird feature built-in to the Windows Task Manager and it makes some users thinks that their Task Manager has an error or corrupted. The normal Windows Task Manager comes with a few tabs such as Applications, Processes, Performance, Networking, Users and it also has a menu bar such as File menu, Options ,View, Windows Shut Down and Help. If you’re not careful, you could end up with a Task Manager WITHOUT the tabs and menu bar.
So far I’ve seen this question being asked 3 times in forum by LunarWolf, yexist and gwa-53 reporting the same problem and I thought I should write an article to inform everyone that the Task Manager is not corrupted or caused by virus when you see such behavior.
Normally when you press the Alt key it should highlight/select the File menu which shows the menu bar. An example is the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009 which by default the menu bar is not shown and you can make the menu bar appear by pressing the Alt key. However, this won’t work in Windows Task Manager when the menu bar and tabs are missing.
To fix this problem, all you need to do is to double click at the edge of the Task Manager and the menubar with tabs will re-appear.
Yeap this is a really weird feature of the Task manager and I bet many users don’t even know about this. Not sure why Microsoft implemented this because I could never find a chance or any reason to use the compact version of Task Manager.
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27 Responses for "Fix Windows Task Manager With Missing Tabs and Menu"
coool
Great Ray !!!!!!
i have faced this problems so many times..but never was able to correct it
thanks it will help in future
it was implemented because some users wanted a clean interface with no extra stuff stucking out. for example if you just want the processes tab and not the rest, wouldn’t it be nicer if it just had that?
I was so scared when this happened to me the first time. It didn’t even fix itself after the computer restarted. I figured out how to fix it after a couple of months, and I too am still wondering whether this is a bug or some feature :-/
I remember I came across this “problem” a few weeks after buying Windows XP in 2001. I went and posted for help on a tech support forum. My thread received at least 20 replies before someone found out all I had to do was double click the outer area of the taskmanager.
Now I have switched from Windows XP to Windows 7, this “feature” is still included. I really don’t understand why, it causes more bad than good.
Learning alot from you Ray!!! Thanks!!!
Thank you for your congratulations
This tips was valuable.
the truth is, i have faced this too b4. at first, thought it was because of virus.. luckily, i accidentally double click at the edge, and everything return to normal.. (^_~)v
Actually, I’ve been using this feature when at the performance tab for quite some time. It makes the graphs taller and longer, so if I don’t want to maximize task manager and cover the whole desktop just to see cpu usage history.
very weird !!
thanks for the info Raymond
another cool one mate, cheers!
good information Ray !
thnxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks. Did face this problem a couple of times.
If you’re not using the welcome screen, the official way to get task manager up is CTRL-SHIFT-ESC
My friend had encountered this problem years ago…He was scared it might be because of a virus…I donno he formatted or not but later informed me that “double clicking”"was what was required !!
Amazing , Actually I had this problem so I started to use an software for managing processes, but actually even with that you can go to processes or to services by Right clicking on the columns.
thanks for the info Raymond
Thank you Raymond – I didn’t know this one. Well done.
Thanks a lot Ray!!!
yap..!! i was aware of this.. actually I faced this a no of times & at last sorted this out. Similarly u can hide the tab area if u double click in the same place..
Interesting. I have never encountered this before. If this ever happens to me in the future, I’ll know what to do.
Raymond, the first time that I encountered this problem I clicked and double-clicked all over the image taking that the file menu was hidden. Like a fool, I kept doing this for months and the problem never went away. The problem fix in my case did not work. I was bound to have clicked in the correct area a dozen times or more with no positive results. What fixed it? A reinstall of Windows XP Pro.
It seems that the method that you gave in this post work for many others – but didn’t work for me. This type of thing happens to me all of the time.
If the Windows Task Manager has been disabled you can enable it by using notepad and making a file called
TaskManager_Reset.reg
Then place the following text in that file:-
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\TaskManager]
Then save it and run it.
This works for XP but I don’t know if it works for Vista or Windows 7.
I too faced this problem some time ago… got fed restoring tskmngr,reformatted my computer….Q.E.D Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity. ..but..
I am wiser now.
This also occurs quite frequently when a system is robbed of remaining resources, and other programs begin to drop off key pulldown menu commands, having to constantly clear the screen with a right-click clear the desktop (because the minimize buttons fail)
An example: You are on your 14th rar install with 25 browser windows open and firefox has nearly shutdown..
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