WinXP Boot issue

[mrurmil]

Got a bit of a newbie question here. Everytime my windows boots up I get this error saying Could not load file D:/whatever. Obviously the directory is not there, and it is trying to start up some program that I uninstalled long ago. The program no longer appears in add/remove programs; I don't see anything related to it in msconfig; nothing in startup folder. Does anyone know any other ways to get rid of this thing coming up? It's pretty annoying :mad:

[boredguyatcomp]

maybe cleaning your registry. if not then theres always that handy reformat :)

[arkamw]

Take a run through the registry. Start at HKLM > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Currentversion > Run and see what in there. Keep in mind, there are a number of other places for startup stuff to hide as well. If you don't find it in the standard place, do a search for the filename and see if you can find it that way.

Also, that specific file might not be listed as a startup item. There could be a program running that is calling that file (viruses will sometimes do this).

[Langford]

I had to clean my niece's computer for her a while back, and after vanquishing a nasty bit of spyware, it started getting a similar error. It turns out that the shell had been set to use the spyware executable as a parameter for explorer. Still, I kinda doubt thats the reason for your error, but it is basically the same error as you are getting.
How I would approach this would be to do a search from in regedit for the offending file-path. If it is in a harmless setting, then you will probably be alright simply deleting the key, but be very careful not to kill anything important or you may hose your computer.

[mrurmil]

Fixed it after doing some more snooping around.

Thanks.