Nancy,

Believe it or not, this can be caused by a blank entry, or an entry with a
period "." only in one of the startup or run areas.

I would look first at the run or load line in win.ini as it is the easiest.
The line can contain several startup items, look for a period out of place.
It can look like "run=" , or "run=ding.exe", or "run=ding.exe, bong.exe",
but not "run=." or "run=ding.exe.".

Next look in all the run areas in the registry.
Some of these are:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce

A neat tutorial someone mentioned some time back for where things start and
how to modify them is at:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm

Fred Nielson

-----Original Message-----
From: PCSOFT - Personal Computer software discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Nancy
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 10:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCSOFT] Startup


 I must have done something to my computer and now when it starts up, the
 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM window opens also.  I have Windows ME and I opened
 MSCONFIG  - startup - but I don't know which item checked is this one.
 Can someone please help?  Thank you.

 Nancy Klocker

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