The Taskkill.exe program stops responding when you try to end a process in an installation of Windows Vista that is running in audit mode

Consider the following scenario. When you run Windows Vista in audit mode, you try to end a process by using the Taskkill.exe program. However, the Taskkill.exe program stops responding. If you try to end the unresponsive Taskkill.exe process by using another instance of Taskkill.exe, the second instance also stops responding.

This problem occurs because a deadlock prevents the Windows Management Instrumentation (Wmiprvse.exe) process from starting. The Taskkill.exe program relies on Wmiprvse.exe to collect information about the process to be ended.

Security update information

To resolve this problem, install the most current cumulative security update for Internet Explorer. To install the most current updates, visit the following Microsoft Web site: For more technical information about the most current cumulative security update for Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note This update was first included in security update 956390 (MS08-058). For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.