win7 Home prem +Task Manager problems

[George27]

I was having some problems with zone alarm and Win7 Home Prem 64. I am using Sysinternal process manager is the default task manager. I had it checked off in the options column is the default manager. Going back to zone alarm I was having some issues with some connectivity and I was getting some service error in the event viewer with the locating network service. The connection manager, I use DSL, could not find the network and prohibited the shutdown of the computer. It would just hang during this shutdown so I had to turn off the power to restart it. I have a cheap Dell Inspiron 570 and it doesn't have a reboot button. After the crash I was looking at the process manager and noticed that the options column was back to replace task manager. After trying to check it it would not check. I tried bringing up the Windows task manager and I get a message “Windows cannot find” the location of the exe in the system32 folder. Taskmgr.exe is still in the system32 folder in it after double-clicking it I get the Windows cannot find message again. Just to be sure I ran antivirus software and some malware software which came up clean and then sfc /scannow and that found no errors either. System restore would not restore to points before the crash. I don't know if the file is just corrupt? Would anybody have any solutions on how to fix this hopefully without having to do a repair install or a complete reinstallation.

Thank you in advance.

Edited May 27, 2010 by George27

[George27]

Okay I solved the problem. What was corrupted was Sysinternal process explorer. I redownloaded a new copy and was able to change the status of taskmgr.exe back to default and it works perfectly.

Edited May 27, 2010 by George27

[cluberti]

Notice if this ever happens to you in the future, the Process Explorer binary simply adds itself as an Image File Execution Option for taskmgr.exe here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\taskmgr.exe

Just delete the taskmgr.exe key inside the Image File Execution Options key, and it'll stop trying to start procexp.exe. If you want to see what it does, Set Process Explorer as a task manager replacement, and then look in that registry location to see what it did. It's pretty simple, actually, but effective.