Certain tools in Vista can be used to maliciously or innocently wreak havoc on a computer. Although such tools are useful in specific situations, you may want to disable access to some of these tools to prevent unwanted changes to your computer.

Task Manager is one such tool that can produce negative results, such as system instability, when used incorrectly. You can prevent users from accessing Task Manager by disabling it through the Group Policy Editor.

To disable Task Manager in Vista using the Group Policy Editor:

1. Open the Group Policy Editor.
2. Navigate to User Configuration/Administrative Templates / System / Ctrl+Alt+Del Options.
3. In the details panel, enable the Remove Task Manager policy option.
4. Restart your computer or type gpupdate /force at the command prompt.