Whenever a new machine is installed with XP, the start button is automatically clicked the first time a user logs in, this expands the start menu until the user clicks somewhere in the background, etc.

what i'm hoping can happen, is to bypass this clicking of the start menu by default, so when the first user first logs on, the start bar remains static and not open.

Any ideas?

Push

I've seen similiar behaviour... no solution tho as it's pretty low on my list of priorities at the moment.

try this tweak;
[code]; Disable Start Menu Popping Up on First Boot
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"StartMenuInit"=dword:00000002
"StartButtonBalloonTip"=dword:00000002[/code]
grabbed this from the UARegistryTweakageDOTNET0.4.1.exe program