My friend called me today after her system crashed, she managed to get it to boot, did a restore(restore from partition using HP restore software)and in the process lost several valuable documents, and also every time now when it boots into windows, the system32 folder is open.

I have seen this before, but cannot remember the fix, can someone refresh my memory pls.

The OS is XP home edition version 2002, updated to SP3, and i dont have disk to re-install

Thanks

Edited October 3, 200916 yr by BJMckay

I have this same problem on my Dell380 workstation running WinXP Pro. It's supposed to be common on Dells w/ a Sound Blaster Audigy2 OEM card. There's a script on a site [http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm] recommended by one of the forums I've recently visited [tom's hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/86892-45...pearing-startup] that's supposed to fix the problem on Dells. I haven't tried it or any scripts from this site. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know which sites are safe, but someone else may be familiar with the site and have used some of the scripts.

The MS Knowledge Base Article on the problem is "System32 Folder Opens When Logging on to Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows NT 4.0

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=170086

Keywords: kbenv kbprb kbui KB170086

I haven't tried that either. When I get around to modifying the registry I want to also modify it so the computer boots into my documents folder.

And that's all I know about that.

Thanks for those, but unfortunately the one on tom's hardware is a fix for IE, and did not fix my problem.

I read the microsoft support article Q170086, and couldn't decipher which entry was causing the fault, so i

deleted all entries in run folder[ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] and

also the entries in run folder [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] except for

the default entries[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

Value: SystemTray

Value Type: REG_SZ

Value Data: SysTray.exe

After reboot, i just had to change preferences in regards to certain applications that require permission to run at start-up, and all is good!

Edited September 26, 200916 yr by BJMckay