Other - Task Manager Not Opening on XP

I have tried most of the suggestions from the older postings (from 2005) to no avail. I am running Windows XP Home Edition SP3 on an eMachine. I previously had 5 accounts on the machine but have eliminated (I think) all but the Home Account (Guest is inactivated). In case it matters, I have IE7.0 for a browser.

When doing the Ctrl-Alt-Del, or right-clicking the Task bar and clicking Task Manager, or even Start-Run-Taskmgr, the Task Manager window does not open. I have only recently noticed this after my daughter was 'socially engineered' into clicking their button and ran the 'Windows PC Defender' highly intrusive 'virus(?)'. After having my McAfee and Ad-Aware software 'blocked', I downloaded SpyBot Search&Destroy to clean up and finally re-gained access to those tools.

After running all three packages 'Full Scans', SpyBot still had 12 files (Fraud.WindowsProtectionSuite) I could not delete, so I then downloaded and ran Malware Bytes' and now all four of these tools return 'Clean Scans'...however, I still cannot get the Task Manager window to open.

Today I downloaded and ran the Windows Process Explorer, and although a rookie with it, did not see any 'extra' processes that appeared to be running.

Am I still infected with a virus or Malware or is there a simple 'fix' or setting I am over looking? Any newer suggestions or solutions are welcomed! Hopefully I have provided enough to help get started, but if not, let me know what other things I need to provide. Thanks!

What happens if you right-click the taskbar and choose Task Manager?

Can you post a HijackThis log?

Also, I don't suppose you know what virus was removed?

Task Manager can be disabled in a number of ways. The most common are drop-in files that prevent access, group policy restrictions, or disabling the tools via the registry. If I can pinpoint the problem it will prevent from having to go through all three fixes.

[Thanks Nilpo - I am at work, so will have to wait until late tonight to see if I can run the HijackThis log on the home PC. The three different ways I know of to open the Task Manager all have the same result....nothing opens or happens (Ctrl-Alt-Del, then click Task Manager; Right-click Task Bar, then click Task Manager; Start-Run-Taskmgr).

I am not sure which virus was removed, but will go back through the SpyBot S&D scan results to see if I still show what was removed, since it was the first software that allowed me access to the others. I will also check the results on the others as well.

I understand how difficult it is to diagnose without all of the information, so will work to get it. I appreciate your time.

Nilpo - because I am a new user, the forum would not allow me to post urls. Should I send this to you in an email? Sorry for being too new.

Nilpo - because I am a new user, the forum would not allow me to post urls. Should I send this to you in an email? Sorry for being too new.

Nilpo - I sent a copy of the HijackThis log to your hotmail account since I could not post URLs to this forum, due to the newness of my account. I will be out of town for two days, but will look for any suggestions upon my return. Thanks in advance.