Task Manager is a system utility that ships by default with Windows Vista. The tool is not new to Microsoft's latest operating system, having survived from older versions of Windows. Task Manager will essentially enable users to force exit a program that is no longer responsive, connect a process with the associated application, and monitor the performance of the operating system and the hardware resources. Task Manager is system management and monitoring utility critical in some very basic scenarios where Windows Vista is confronted with functionality issues. Therefore, sometimes, it is vital for the tool to be enabled.

In this respect, of course that, in the line of the extensive configuration options delivered by Vista, users can also enable or disable Task Manager. This is not as much an issue of personalization, as offering control over the tool. And in this context, Vista editions deal with the matter at hand differently. First off, there are the Home Basic and Home Premium SKUs. For these two editions, enabling or disabling the Task Manager is nothing more than a trip to the registry. Simply enter "regedit" in the Search box under the Start menu and press Crtl + Shift + Enter or right-click and choose Run as administrator from the contextual menu that pops up, in order to run the registry editor with elevated privileges.

Next navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies. Here open System, DisableTaskMgr, and change Value data to 0, in order to enable Task Manager, or to 1 in order to disable the tool. Nothing could be simpler, revealed David Overton, ISV Partner Account Manager at Microsoft.

But for the remaining Windows Vista editions, you will have to make your way to the Group Policy Object Editor, since a simple registry hack will no longer due the trick. In order to access the Group Policy Object Editor, type "gpedit.msc" in the Search box under the Start menu and then launch the tool with elevated privileges, as shown above. Navigate to User Configuration, Administrative Templates; System, Ctrl+Alt+Del Options, Remove Task Manager, and here you can choose between either Enable or Disable the utility.

Alternatively, you can also swap Task Manager for something a tad better. You can look at it as an upgrade. All you have to do is download Process Explorer, a tool designed by Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich. Under Options in the utility's Menu, select replace Task Manager, in order to have Process Explorer come up when you press Ctrl + Alt + Del or Ctrl + Shift + Esc.