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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Thanks for that
A real nuisance feature if you are unaware of it.
Wish Microsoft would put some value on minimalism.
thanks u very much yr support
I wonder why the comments are moderated?
Is it a feature or a glitch…????????? had the shot gun out ready to skeet shoot the win7 disks and revert back to xp pro 64. Have no idea why one would consider TABS MIA without requesting they disappear – a feature. It happened to me this eve… thanks for the tip and thank google the post was indexed.
Ohh.. great.. I had the same issue and fixed it just now with the help of this post.. Its almost a month :):):)
Thank you so much, helped a lot today when I was scrambling to figure out what I did wrong.
Thanks, that was helpfull.
omg do I feel stupid, I have been racking my brains wonder what i did to make it disapear in 1st place. LMAO
thx for the info
Thanks, I was about to freak out like Stu on the Hangover saying to myself “WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON!” ROFL
Thanks, like Stu on the hangover saying “WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON!” ROFL
Thank you very much!
Thanks so much! Can’t believe how simple the fix was. Thought for sure I had a virus!!
What a stupid and useless feature. Thanks for the help.
thanks mate thats been bugging me for months
Great, thanks for your help :)
thanx for help! ^_^
awesome. thanks for the help. I am also confused why this will be considered a feature.
Thank You!
very nice info..thank you
Thank you!!
Thank you for the cure for this problem.
I had already attempted to cure the lack of the tool bar by doing a system repair.!!!!!
that simple step very help me out. thanks.
i sat with this issue for 5 days, all a sudent this magic stik, thank you very much
I freak out.Thanks vm.
I was worry about it ! Thanks for the help !
Thanks. I love simple fixes.
thank you, thought I’d have to reinstall windows again, as usual!
Thanx, that sorted me out, I was battling with this problem locked into the Services tab only, gave me no way to unfreeze misbehaving programs. Can’t believe I never tried double clicking the frame before.
I wonder if Microsoft knows how to fix this. Thanks for the help. I’ll keep coming back for more. You have made a believer out of me.
In the business for 32 years and still learning!
dude u r the best…………..
saved me……………………..
You saved me hours of work. Thanks
Just what I wanted to know – and why didn’t Windows help tell me this eh?
thannnnnks a lot man
Very grateful for your help re Task Manager. Like you cannot believe that this function to toggle between all the tabs and a single tabby a double click. Surely Microsoft should update it. Many many thanks now I can use TM properly again!
this is good . Thanks , been really helpful
thanks for you….
thanks uuuuuuuuuuuuu
Wow! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I thought I had a virus. Can’t thank you enough. Such a stupid thing. Why would windows do that????
Man that “function” freaked me out. For the past year it had been running in the full task manager mode, but for some reason windows decided to change it right after Norton warned me that they had blocked a known attack. Firefox had begun to run sluggish and so I thought I had a virus, but a full system scan and then a quick search to find your excellent article later, I come to find that it’s just windows messing with me…
Thanks a lot man, you put Slayer to shame when it comes to rockin´! …it´s bloody amazing that microsoft thought this feature would come in handy lol… extreme stupidity or fuckfullness :Þ
Thanks a lot! I’m happy :)
Thanks very much – it worked just like you described.
tnx man that worked
Thanks! I got this problem for a month now and it’s good I found the solution here. Thank u so much Raymond.
Thanks for the info it was driving me crazy
Thank you – it was really helpful. My task manager is back again with regular features.
Good Advice!!
thank uuuuuuuuuuuu vryyyyyyyyyyyyy muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It worked!!!!!!! :P
very nice and very good
Just to say thanks: a double click save my day.
Thank you so much!!! It worked!!!
it’s cool ,thank u !
This was useful, well written and I got my solution very quickly. Thank you!!
hey thanks it worked for me
thnx! i was scared
thanks lifesaver thought i had a virus
thanks……yaar…keep good job going…bye
thanks alot ..it worked .was worried with ths 4 a long time.happy ending
thanks man,
desculpe eu não falo inglês muito bem, mas gostaria de agradeçer porque mesmo nos foruns de meu país (Brazil) não consegui encontrar essa informação, somente aqui
Romania say THANKS , MERSI , Mucios Gracias :)
It work man , thanks , your great man , double click .. yes works … thanks , thanks :)
thanks a ton.
I’ve never seen that before but I’ll remember it thanks for that. Btw I noticed that ctrl+tab works for switching the tabs while in that view.
Brilliant tip Raymond, many thanks from me as well! I’ll try to glue my hair back in. P
that easy tricks… i am laughing to my self, how i was not realize that thing… i used to think it is because viruses…
ha2…,, thanks for tips…
nice. easy fix for a change!
thanxs ray
THANK YOU!! You just saved me what was getting ready to be, I am sure, hours of “troubleshooting” in the wrong direction!!
Thanks for that info.Thought my New HP Win 7 laptop was corrupted.
Thanks a Bunch! This has happened to me before and I was going absolutely nutz. I tried rebooting, right clicking for a submenu. etc. It’s little things like this that can really drive someone crazy. Again, really appreciate the time you took too explain this.
Cheers! :D
Hi Very very thanks for this useful info.
Infact I was little worried about this behaviour of task manager.
windows 7 user. thank you very much. i thought i did something or worse a virus. i scanned only to find all clean.
thanks again :)
Obrigado pela dica. Segunda vez que me serve!
Bj
My god, thanks… after a long experience of computers since 15 years… i don’t know this feature… thank you very much dear
Thank You Raymond for this awesome information. No, one would think to click there…
Thanks a lot the info. I couldn’t understand wtf was going on with a Task Manager. Problem is solved 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..
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.
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.
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.
Interesting. I have never encountered this before. If this ever happens to me in the future, I’ll know what to do.
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..
Thanks a lot Ray!!!
Thank you Raymond – I didn’t know this one. Well done.
thanks for the info Raymond
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.
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 !! :)
If you’re not using the welcome screen, the official way to get task manager up is CTRL-SHIFT-ESC
Thanks. Did face this problem a couple of times.
thnxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
good information Ray !
another cool one mate, cheers!
very weird !!
thanks for the info Raymond
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.
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
This tips was valuable.
Thank you for your congratulations
Learning alot from you Ray!!! Thanks!!!
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.
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 :-/
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?
Great Ray !!!!!!
i have faced this problems so many times..but never was able to correct it
thanks it will help in future
coool