Psuedo Guru Blog by a wannabe guru with spelling issues.

Invoking the Task Manager without CTRL-ALT-DELETE

I was in a remote desktop session that was launched while inside a VMware virtual machine (don't ask why), and needed to invoke the task manager in the remote desktop machine. I hit control-alt-delete, but that brought up the task manager in my primary host machine. Insert-alt-delete brought up the task manager in my VM. I thought I was stuck, but then stumpled upon this little Windows goody.

Right click in the task bar at the bottom of the screen, and one of the options that appears in the popup menu will let you launch the taskbar.

Windows 2000 beeping at login

For some reason, one of my W2K VMs keeps beeping at whenever I log in. I think it is related somehow to the accessibility settings, but for the life of me I could not get the beep to go away no matter what settings I choose. It was really annoying because it was one of those "system beeps" that plays really loud to the whole world even if you have your speaker muted or had headphones on.

I finally found the solution here. It basically disables the system beep entirely. I'll reproduce the instructions below in case the link above dies at some point:

1. Right-click My Computer and select Manage.
2. Expand System Tools and select Device Manager.
3. From the View menu, select Show hidden devices.
4. Expand Non-Plug and Play Drivers.
5. Right-click Beep, and select Properties.
6. Select the Drivers tab.
7. Click Stop. 
8. Change the start-up type to Disabled.

After that, I rebooted and logged in, beepless for the first time in ages.