ok...my inner support tech is now banging his head against the mental construct of a desk at that.

I suspect at this point, creating a live boot disc from an .iso download is probably going to be your only hope of a reboot.... and may the Gods have mercy on your soul if you try it with a cracked version of windows!

I think a linux distro is going to be your only hope if windows goes fubar, realistically spekaing. [i.e Btdt]

As for the system monitor...yes, your system suckage would stop it from updating as well...