Can't kill tasks, Vista Ultimate 64 sp1

I have a Sager NP2096 with Vista Ultimate 64.

I noticed this issue at first with VLC. I downloaded the latest version (0.9*) and was able to watch a movie. I shut the program down and later decided to watch another movie. I noticed that VLC would not start so I opened the Task Manager and noted that the VLC process was running. I tried to "end process" on vlc.exe, but it just would not. Also tried to "end process tree", but that didn't work either. Every time I tried to open VLC, same thing: VLC would not load on screen, but a new unkillable process got created. I even tried Taskkill.exe and it appeared like it killed the processes (using the /F forceful option) but I could still see the processes in the task manager. I downloaded a program called "Process Explorer" and that wouldn't kill the processes either.

I've noticed the same thing so far with Internet Explorer.

This is specially annoying as the only way to get rid of the processes is to restart the laptop. Otherwise, there's no way to start the program whose process can't be killed.

Any ideas?

 

This program might help
http://www.techmalaya.com/2008/01/12/kill-an-application-in-one-click-with-click-gone/

But you can't see VLC player?

 

...

That's right, I can't see VLC. When it happens with IE, the GUI comes up, but it hangs. I can [x] it out, and I get the "this program has stopped responding" message. The GUI then dissapears, but ieexplore.exe still lives in the Task Manager