Re-Enabling Programs or Options that have been Disabled

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J Schewe Posted: Sat, Oct 6 2007 7:17 PM

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I've found that lots of things on vista can be disabled by the simple misclick of a button, or by a virus that got downloaded or some other reason and its so hard to re-enable it because Microsoft didn't make UIs for all those objects that can get disabled, because of this I will start a list of objects that have gotten disabled and possible ways to re-enable them as a reference for others that come here:

Hibernation - Can get disabled by using "Cleanup Wizard", "powercfg -H OFF".
to re-enable: run "powercfg -H ON" as administrator. (See Vista Hibernation - how to re-enable? for more info.)

Windows Firewall and Security Center - Can get disabled by using the "Services" control panel.
to re-enable: run the Services control panel, and select the service called "Windows Firewall" and or "Security Center", right click and press properties. Change the startup type from "Disabled" to whatever you want depending on when you want it to run. Manual if you want to start it on your own, Automatic if you want it to start right away when you start windows, or Automatic (Delayed Start) if you want it to run a couple minutes after you start windows. And of course I recommend Automatic.

Task Manager - Can get disabled by changing registers.
to re-enable: run c:\windows\regedit.exe and change the tag HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ System \ DisableTaskMgr to the value of 0 or delete it altogether.(See How to enable / disable / change the Task Manager on Windows Vista for more info.)


Note that a virus can disable or enable anything that the user can disable and enable.

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David Overton replied on Wed, Oct 10 2007 9:24 AM

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I started writing up the task manager and then I decided there was more to it, so it is now blogged at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/10/10/how-to-enable-disable-change-the-task-manager-on-windows-vista.aspx

ttfn

David

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J Schewe replied on Sat, Oct 13 2007 11:34 PM

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Yeah, what does it mean if that tag isn't in the registry? (HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ System \ DisableTaskMgr)

I expect that that would mean it's equal to zero (or off), so the taskmgr is not disabled?

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David Overton replied on Sat, Oct 13 2007 11:50 PM

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If there is no policy in place, then the default operation of the system take place, i.e. Task Manager will continue to run.

ttfn

David