[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Open Vista's Task Manager Directly here

[Grayhair]

Works in XP too.

[jomasecu]

Yeah, with XP on a domain or just with fast user switching disabled, ctrlaltdel does not bring you directly to the task manager. Ctrlshiftesc is convenient there as well.

[mphenterprises]

That is not the most effective way to get to the Task Manager in either Operating System (Windows XP or Windows Vista). In Windows Vista (Service Pack 1) and Windows XP (Service Pack 3), simply Right Click on the Taskbar and select Task Manager: (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

[rrubr]

If you're looking for a mnemonic for Ctrl-Shift-Esc, notice they're the 3 corner keys at the left of the keyboard--top-and-2-bottom. Easier to remember by position, like touch typing.......

[TheCodeWrangler]

A caveat from my experience: When Windows is already unresponsive, it can take 10 minutes or longer for a new copy task manager to open by any means (CTRL-SHIFT-ESC, CTRL-ALT-DEL, etc).

To get around this, I put a Task Mananger shortcut in my Startup menu, set the shortcut to run Minimized and set Task Manager itself to "Hide when Minimized" (the last 2 are to prevent the user from clicking X as a knee-jerk reaction).

With Task manager already running, any keyboard shortcut will call up the already running Task Manager instantly. If it doesn't, your system is already too far gone and you might as well hit a hard reset.

[TheCodeWrangler]

(response to mphenterprises suggestion to right-click the taskbar):

While this is a great way to pull up the task manager, it will not work if your GUI is locked up. Keyboard shortcuts are much more reliable. Thanks anyway!