Duplicate startup items in msconfig

Hi francoravec.  I haven't seen you posting a question for a while.  Things must have been quite stable in XP then? ;-)

Yes, the way the old Win98 MsConfig and Registry worked was that when you unticked a box to disable a startup, it created a new "run" key suffixed by a minus sign and moved the setting into that for as long as it was unticked in MsConfig.  For example, a hypothetical startup named "StartMe" with a path "C:\Whatever\StartMeUp.exe" running as a startup in the Current User's profile would be stored in the Win98 Registry as:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"StartMe"="C:\\Whatever\\StartMeUp.exe"

If disabled in the Win98 MsConfig that would have just created a key named:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run-]
(if it didn't already exist), and the string value wuld be moved into that.

In Win98 any program shortcuts in the Start Menu's "StartUp" folder would be moved into a new folder named "Disabled Startup Items" (or similar) for as long as the startup was disabled in MsConfig.

So, in Windows 98 you could simply delete the
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\..\..Run-]
key, or selectively delete any string value in it, and the empty box in the MsConfig startup tab would disappear.

As you've discovered, Windows XP doesn't make it quite as easy, but sramesh2k has provided an excellent link that explains it all very well and also provides a link to a free utility named "MSConfig Cleanup utility" (http://www.get-in-control.com/msconfig-cleanup/) which provides you with a quick method of deleting the registry values that have left the empty tick boxes behind after the program decided to re-enable itself as a startup and create a new tick box which it ticked.  Apple QuickTime is one of the usual culprits in this respect.

The program is small, quick to install, and doesn't do anything other than what it is designed to do, and that is displaying the details of ONLY the empty boxes you have showing in MsConfig's startup tab.  It's quick and easy to just select one or more and the program does the registry deletion so you don't have to mess in regedit.

I used to do this using a "DOS" batch file, but I believe that the link given by sramesh2k has guided me to a great little utility I will now use instead.  Give it a try.  I think it will help you out too.  (thanks for that link sramesh2k :-)

Bill