XP Startup - Must be simple because I can't solve it!

[dedificator]

Try last version of Autoruns from sysinternals.
Now this prog is capable to show & edit all startup things, including services and so on ... , what is missing in msconfig. Nice.

[hobferret]

Thanks for all your replies

Just managed to fix it, lunchtime Friday. Got all messed up yesterday with the bloody terrorists bombings in London

Searching thru the registry and looking for anything related to system32 I found this:-

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell REG_SZ Explorer.exe C:\Windows\System32

Deleting that key has cured the problem

Thanks again

/hobferret

[Mkz]

Originally Posted by hobferret

Searching thru the registry and looking for anything related to system32 I found this:-

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell REG_SZ Explorer.exe C:\Windows\System32

Deleting that key has cured the problem

Looking at my registry, seems that the correct value would be simply "Explorer.exe", instead of "Explorer.exe C:\Windows\System32".
Apparently, when the key is missing, Winlogon uses Explorer as the default.

Maybe you were playing around with shell replacements, that failed to restore the correct value when uninstalling...?



As for the bombings, there's one thing that puzzles me.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings#Issues

It was reported on CBS News that a senior Israeli official said that British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before the explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city. An Associated Press report carried on a number of news sites, including The Guardian, attributed the initial report of a warning to an Israeli "Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity," but added Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's later denial on Israel Army Radio: "There was no early information about terrorist attacks." A similar report on the site of right-wing Israeli paper Israel National News / Arutz Sheva attributed the story to "Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources."

Is it me, or in most events such as this, the authorities always *seem* to have known beforehand at least *something* about what whas going to happen?

[JMI]

The difficulty with "knowing" is that there is often "too much information" and some of it is too untested to be considered "reliable." And as a simple, sad fact, we all know that "something is going to happen." The real problem is figuring out "where," "when," and by exactly "whom."

We simply have to take it as a "given" that there are people in most countries who will, if given enough time and opportunity, launch attacks against one group or another to advance their political, ethnic, and/or religious agenda with little or not concern for the consequences to others and often with the hope that mass casualties will frighten some government, or group or another into changing its position on something they want changed, or worst, will cause some to overreact and lash out at other innocent people and further the interests those causing the carnage are seeking to advance.

The trick is always to try not to become worse than those whom one is fighing in order to defeat them. It is most unfortunate that some countries have capitulated in the face of terrorist attacks, because that always simply emboldens others to attempt the same result in other locations.

But none of this is really new to a student of history. Only some of the weapons are better, and, therefor, the potential for wanton death and destruction greatly increased. People who view themselves superior to others on the basis of ethnicity, politics, and/or religion seem not to have great difficulty going that step further and finding self-justification for the "elimination" of all those who do not appear willing to bend to or share their own view of their self assumed "superiority."

Unfortunately, such people fail to see the moral bankruptcy of their own actions and simply can not be reasoned with and are unwilling to accept any other path. These choices leave society with no other option but to hunt them down and eliminate them, but that also is a path which may lead to grave consequences for society seeking to improve its own security.

Regards,

[hobferret]

Well said JMI

I could not agree more!

To Mkz the registry branch HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell REG_SZ Explorer.exe C:\Windows\System32

Well you may have noticed that I was not so stupid as to delete the whole thing, just the C:\Windows\System32 part of it. No offense mate, just thought I would point it out.

/hobferret

[Mkz]

From your text I understood that you actually removed the key

Originally Posted by hobferret

Deleting that key has cured the problem

It would't surprise me that if the key is missing, Winlogon would use Explorer.exe as a default, altough I leave that experiment for someone else to try