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On XP start up explorer.exe pops up

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by ragman

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So, on every start up, the explorer.exe window pops up to the system32 subdirectory. From the MS site, this basically means that it can't find some file that it thinks it wants to start up. OK, fine, how do I figure out what it's looking for so that I can correct this without a lot of trial and error? This is driving me nuts. OK, more nuts. Thanks

6 replies

by tabcomputers2002

I had this problem on a 98 machine. After I ran Ad-aware and Spybot, I looked at what programs were starting from the "RUN" and "LOAD" commands in the registry. I found a line that was opening that directory. I deleted the line and that solved it.

If you look to the registry, make sure to back it up before you do anything.

Good luck
Tim

by ragman

I can't discern any anonomly in the registry entiries, but what do I know. Is anyone aware of some utility or method of single stepping through each entry loading or executing on start up so I may see what is directly causing the problem?

by ragman

Sue, autoruns is an interesting program, but I can't discern if any entry it shows is causing the problem. It did show one enty that had a missing file, so I deleted that enty. No change with the original problem however. What I envision, but don't know if it exists, is a program that might afford the control of single stepping through all the loads and autoruns so I can see which item is actually causing the problem. I'm not sure what direction to strike in. Jim

by sue t

A couple of ideas. How about opening Task Manager and making print screens of the Applications screen and the processes screen then closing the explorer window that had popped up and then checking Applications and Processes against your print screens to see what is no longer there? I would also disable everything that autoruns except what I think is needed to start the computer and see if the problem goes away. Or maybe do a repair of XP and see if the problem continues. I have also run Norton Utilities from CD (I don't like to install it)and had it fix problems like this.

by jasonbis

OK. Here's what I would do. Go to start, run and type in msconfig. Go to the startup tab where it list all the items that start up with your machine. See if you can identify it in there. If it's not obvious start unchecking things one a time and rebooting to see if the window pops up. Don't worry you can't really screw anything up in here. If Windows needs it, it will come back.

If you aren't successful with any of that, then go back in to msconfig and go to the general tab. From here choose the selective startup and uncheck the boxes one at a time and reboot. For instance, if you choose to not process your system.ini and it fixes the problem, then you need to edit that file. Do a search for it and open it in a text editor. Somewhere in that file will be a reference to the pop up you are getting.

Try those out. Hope it helps.

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