Thank you all for the suggestions. It does appear to be fixed, although I can't point to the exact cause. I did remove some unused software - Google toolbars, Google desktop search, for example. Ran a registry cleaning tool that I trust. I was able to finally kill the process using taskkill. Upon reboot the issue now appears to be gone but it was very strange. Like I said, originally that task manager process did not show up in taskkill. Thank you all again.

Thank you all for the suggestions. It does appear to be fixed, although I can't point to the exact cause. I did remove some unused software - Google toolbars, Google desktop search, for example. Ran a registry cleaning tool that I trust. I was able to finally kill the process using taskkill. Upon reboot the issue now appears to be gone but it was very strange. Like I said, originally that task manager process did not show up in taskkill. Thank you all again.

This is a strange issue but I'll try to explain it. On a Windows 2008 server, the task manager starts in a minimized session in the task tray. It can not be maximized or killed. This happens regardless with multiple logons at the console. However, if I connect via RDP, I can get task manager to start but it takes about 8 - 10 seconds from launch to actually have it start up. I can not kill the other instance of task manager running at the console, in fact, it doesn't even show up in the process list. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? I'm not sure of the history of this but the client claims all that changed was they did some Windows updates. Any clues would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, What i would do is (when task manager responds) check out what user is running taskmgr.exe This may be the first clue to what is actually running it and may be the reason as to why you cant kill the process (assuming its being run from another user AC) Check the startup folder for the presence of taskmgr.exe aswell as msconfig to ensure its not being run anywhere in win/sys.ini (or the equivalent for 2008) If no luck there, check out the system event log after booting to see if that offers any source clues. Martin If you find my information useful, please rate it. :-)

Hi, I would like to suggest you perform a Clean Boot to troubleshoot the issue. If it works fine in Clean Boot, you may enable the disabled services and startup items one by one to narrow down the causes. For the detailed steps, please refer to the following Microsoft KB article: How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135 Regards, Arthur Li TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here .Arthur Li TechNet Community Support