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Start Up Error

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by tknorris

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When I boot my machine I get the error message: "Cannot find the file "C\Program (or one of its components). Make sure the path and filename are correct and that all required libraries are available." Obviously, this is a reference to some application, but I cannot figure out which one(possibly happened during an uninstall). The reference to "C:\Program" helps little. Where can I find out what is causing this error?

9 replies

by wsande1

Very very common problem. One or more of your associations have lost the quotes in their path statment. All you need to do is check the associations list on your system. The way I do it is just to scan them using winfile. If you find one that freerences something like c:\program files\microsoft office\office like this without the quotes then all you will get is cannot find c:\program. If you add the quotes then you will get a proper error and then can handle it from there. I hope this helps.

by tknorris

P.S. I am running Windows NT 4.0. I have checked startup menus within every user profile for references to a missing program.

by jaolson40

Another place you could try is in the Registry. Go Start -> Run -> REGEDIT, then navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

In there may be a reference to a program, without quotes, that can be removed.

Hope this helps!

by pvp

I have run into this on rare occasions--one of my desktop shortcuts had mysteriously lost quotes, was old and pointing to something that was moved or removed, and my mouse _just_happened_ to be sitting on it during startup.

So in addition to the other answers, check all the shortcuts on the desktop--if you're lucky, the mouse pointer will show you the prime suspect.

by tknorris

Thanks guys for the help. I learned a little something here (as I usually do in this question and answer forum). Based on your suggestions what I ended up doing was using a small program called Regclean. It showed me all the startup items from a registry perspective. I noticed a program there that I had recently uninstalled (yet the reference was still in the registry). I simply ran the program's remove function and...surprise....no more error message. Thanks again!!

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