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 PCSOFT's List Owner's: Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]> Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]> Curious about the people moderating your messages? Visit our staff web site: http://freepctech.com/staff.shtml