So far I’ve not come accross any hacks to directly fix the issue, but there are still three solutions.
Solution #1
The new keyboard short cut is CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Seems a little bit harder to remember if you ask me
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Solution #2
Right clicking on the task bar opens a context menu, which happens to have Task Manager as an option.
Vista Task Manager
Solution #3
Open your start menu, and type “taskmgr” (no quotes) in the search bar, and click enter. Doing so should automatically run it.