If you’re like me, you like many of the things Microsoft Vista has built-in, like the ubiquitous search, some of the visual elements, an actual calendar when you click on the clock (it’s the little things in life) and the list goes on (not really, but play along).
There are however, a number of things that really annoy me about Vista, and as I come across them I’ll post to the blog so you can benefit from my frustration.
The annoyance, and solution, for today is the fact that when I have multiple users logged on to Windows Vista, I can’t open task manager, click on the users tab, select the user I want to log off and kick them to the curb.
Instead, I get an annoying message saying [sessionID=X] could not be logged off, access is denied. Denied! I’m an administrator on the machine! The other user is just a user (to make matters even more belittling to my “pretend admin” powers).
Well, after doing a little research I found that you can in fact boot users via task manager, but you must run task manager with elevated privileges (administrator isn’t enough).
So how do you do that you ask? Well, the easiest way is to launch task manager, click on the processes tab, and click the button at the bottom that says “Show Processes from All Users”
(click to enlarge)
When you click the button, the UAC pops up asking you to confirm you want to run this with elevated privileges. Confirm that you do, and presto.. you’re now able to logoff that user, and all is right with the world [for a few seconds at least].
Have a Vista annoyance you need help with? Post it hear and lets see if we can solve them.. all.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Hey, my advice is to get rid of Vista and go with XP. Vista was a mistake made by Microsoft and the truth is, you can do anything with XP that you could do with Vista, and you won’t run into nearly as many problems.
I love to help people out, so if you have questions about ANYTHING, or need some advice, you can follow me @Garbarrassing on Twitter and ask. I will help you out with whatever I can.
September 11th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Thanks, I’ll certainly keep that in mind. XP is stable, Vista has some nice bells and whistles, I just can’t stand the myriad of little annoyances.
October 15th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Great tip. I have been annoyed with that “SessionID=X” message myself. I had similar problems with trying to delete printer jobs. However, with the printer it was a little easier to figure out how to enter administrator mode.
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Thanks, you solved my problem, and believe me, I share your frustration. As for the earlier suggestion that you go on with XP, I had a whole other set of problems and annoyances with XP and was finally convinced that upgrading to the latest nemesis, Vista, was the lesser of two evils. I still believe it was the right call. But thanks a bunch for the help. You solved my idiotic Msft-created problem!
December 9th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Why doesn’t mircosoft just make service pack 2 a.k.a. xp? If they want to they can even keep the little bells and whistles.