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Thincomputing.net TS Task Manager

Wednesday, 28 June 2006 by Michel Roth

The Windows Task manager is a pretty decent tool as far I�m concerned. However, by default it gives you a lot of information and options. In a Terminal Server environment, you might not want to have all those options available to your users. For example, the Set Priority option when right-clicking on a process in the processes tab isn�t an option you want your users to have.

To be able to let users safely use Task Manager I�ve created a very much stripped Task Manager, called TS Task Manager. The TS Task Manager was created using ResHacker.

This TS Task Manager basically only allows you to use the applications tab. Everything else is disabled. The download is an .msi file which installs the TS Task Manager into Program Files\Thincomputing.net Tools. This way it is installed into the same directory as the Thincomputing.net Tools (if you have them installed) The installer also replaces all calls to the old taskmgr.exe. This includes:

� Selecting Task Manager from the Start Menu context menu
� Selecting Task Manager from the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog box
� Typing -> run -> taskmgr.exe
� Even browsing to the old taskmgr.exe and double clicking it!

It does NOT delete or overwrite the original taskmgr.exe executable. Using TS Task Manager you can safely give users access to the useful options of Task Manager and still preserve security. You, as an administrator can still continue to use the old taskmgr.exe, you just have to rename it.

To prevent users from using the �New Task� button, you have to enable the Group Policy setting: �Remove Run menu from Start Menu� under the Administrative Templates\Start Menu and Taskbar of the user configuration part of the Group Policy.

At present, the Thincomputing.net TS Task Manager only works on Windows 2003 and Windows XP. It does NOT work on Windows 2000.

Please note that all tools provided by Thincomputing.net are provided �as-is�. Thincomputing.net can in no way be held responsible for any issues arising from the usage of these tools.

Download here.