Task manager not appearing

Help me! I have a problem. Whenever I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, my task manager doesn't show up anymore. At first I thought maybe one of the buttons wasn't working, but I've tested them all individually and they are responsive. So I went to Run and typed in taskman.exe and still nothing happened, not even an error message. I've even gone straight to the taskman.exe file and double-clicked it -- with absolutely no response.

I've done virus scans and spyware scans and adware scans and no matter what I delete off my computer, my task manager still does not show up when I call it.

Any ideas?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just tried copying the file and renaming it, and still nothing. I double-click it and nothing happens, not even an error message.

Is it significant that my "taskman.exe" file is in the "WINDOWS" folder, and that I don't have a "system32" folder, just a "system" one?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Am I running 3.1 what? I'm sorry, I don't know much about how computers work.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I am able to view hidden folders, and I just got this laptop a year ago, so I'm running Windows XP Home Edition 2002.

I just did a search for the "system32" folder and it came up with two results -- one in C:\WINDOWS\I386 and one in my Microsoft Works folder. Maybe the first one's the real one? (However, it only contains two files: NTDLL.DLL and SMSS.EXE.)

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, I'm considering reformatting it . . .

My computer works great except for the mysteriously vanished task manager. It's fast, it runs programs well, it shuts down and boots up like normal. I bought it new at Best Buy last summer. So . . . yeah.

Thanks for all the help, guys. Reformatting seems to be the only answer.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I did have Hidden Files visible, but for some reason my system32 folder still wasn't showing up, even when I did searches. However, through some complicated file-jumping, I did end up finding it -- in the WINDOWS folder. Yeah, I don't know either.

Once I finally accessed the (correct) system32 folder, I found the taskmgr.exe file (NOT taskman.exe like in the WINDOWS folder), and double-clicking that brought up my task manager. Yay! However, Ctrl+Alt+Del still doesn't work. But, ah well. I put a shortcut to taskmgr.exe in my Start menu for whenever I need it next.

Thanks for everyone's help. I don't have to reformat my computer after all, and I consider this matter closed!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?