task manager has been disabled by your admin

ARRG!

i keep getting this message when i try to do clt-alt-del. i recently got caught with the spysheriff spyware, which did this, and now i've removed the spyware, this error doesn't go away... i can't get into clt-alt-del! help!

See line 275 here...

Lift Restrictions - TM, Regedit and CMD
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Enable/Disable Task Manager:
http://dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_taskmgrenab.htm

thx redduc! works!

The way to do this without any external tools (unless you have XP home, then you're SOL). Almost certainly the flag they set in the registry is the same one the group policy editor uses to control access to the task manager., you can access it by run > gpedit.msc or from the command prompt
>call gpedit.msc

the location in the hierarchy: user>administrative templates>system>Ctrl+Alt+Del Options>disable task manager (disable).

There are a lot of other useful things that can be set using the bundled templates just be aware some of them may have unintended consequences.