Hello,

I am new to the forum, but I did a search on this topic and found information (MSKB 170086 and checking the folder options) which I have already tried. Still no luck.

When I review the entries in the registry, I cannot find any problems.

There aren't any problems with nulls or quotation marks, that I can see.

ActiveMovie File Extensions Value does not exist.

I have not tried deleting everything except the default, because the default [systemTray] doesn't exist and I don't know how to create it.

This happened many years ago and think I recall something wrong with SB Audigy (I have a Dell), but can't recall the particulars.

I corrected the problem and it just now started again. I failed to document it last time, but I won't this time!

Any help will be very much appreciated. (The wait time before the folder opens in huge.)

Thanks

This is caused by a virus or by a leftover file remnant that a service or startup program uses. I'd check for outdated items in the Startup folder as well as in the registry.

You might also want to check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Userinit (REG_SZ=C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,). A trojan could have tried replacing the shell and the restored entry may still be wrong or be calling a leftover.

Thanks Tripredacus and Hordac85. I cleaned up the startup folder and checked the registry for winlogon. Cleaning the startup folder didn't make a difference (only one item there) and there is no winlongon file in the registry. The computer is protected by Microsoft, ATT, and Norton security software and they haven't detected any problems. The only problem it seems to cause is to slow booting processes due to a loop and prevents (sometimes) some of the background programs from starting. If anyone has any more ideas, I would very much appreciate any help.

Edited August 23, 201115 yr by Wendsong

Winlogon is a Key and UserInit is a value under that key. No worries though. You might want to fire up msconfig to eliminate all of your startup items, then add them back in 1 at a time. It's slow and time consuming, but you get an idea of what's causing your startup issues. More than likely the explorer window is being caused by an app or service that had an issue during startup.