Recently, whenever I reboot or even just sign on to my desktop, an annoying box pops up, With the heading above, and saying: You are already running Windows etc etc.
Its an annoyance, nothing more. It closes. But I’d prefer it didn’t show up at all. Any advice on how to kill it? I don’t know why it started popping up, but I did discover the “Backdoor Assasin” (sic) virus on my last scan, and had to quarantine it.
I’m running windows 98.
Thanks
Run ‘msconfig’ and scan through all the start up programs that are trying to run.
It won’t give you all the info you need, but if you uncheck a few boxes of things you can’t figure out and try a few reboots, you might be able to stop whatever it trying to run in your back ground.
Obviously check your “startup” folder as well.
You may also want to try Method 3 from this KB article to restore your original config.sys and autoexec.bat files.
Interesting problem. It seems Windows is told to start twice. Is there any commant in your autoexec.bat file telling it to start? There shouldn’t be.
As a general rule, programs can be started at startup from:
Autoexec.bat
WIN.INI on the load= and run= lines.
STARTUP folder.
REGISTRY
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce
HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce etc
Drivers (VXDs) can also be loaded at startup time from:
badmana, nothing in the startup folder, and I’ve only tried turning off a few things in msconfig, but still no change.
Number, my computer can’t find the config.wos file
sailor, I don’t see any command in my autoexec.bat file telling windows to start.
Use Regedit and check the keys sailor mentioned, specifically, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
I have never seen this before and I am scratching my head thinking what may be the cause. You say it is not serious, just a nuisance. I have lived with different little things like this every time I have reinstalled windows. Who knows. It will probably disappear next time you reinstall windows. . . and something else will start.
sailor, it is just a nuisance, and if past experience is any guide, if I try to hard to fix it, then I’ll really screw things up!
Thanks all for the tips. But I think I’ll let well enough alone. It only adds about 2 seconds to my routine.
I am looking in MSCONFIG and I see you can select a diagnostic startup and a selective startup. You can try that and it will go line by line and will probably identify the line of code. By looking in mine I just realised I have it in “selective startup” and I have no idea why. I must have forgot to pur it back to normal after some test. I will now put it back to normal and mess something up