Windows 2000, SP3, pretty new load of it.

Anyhow, heres the problem. I have 2 things I want to run at startup. Simple enough, stick them in the Startup part of the Start Menu right? Well, If I put them in my personal folder (C:\documents and settings\Drakino\Start Menu\Startup), they don't run. I see them just fine in the start menu though. So I stick them in the All users folder, and they run twice.

Anyone know whats going on and how to fix it?

They run twice if they're both places, right? You added them to ``All Users'' in addition to in your personal one, right? That is, if you removed them from your personal folder and left them in ``All Users'', they'd just get run once, right? Right?!? (Sorry -- got carried away)

My thought is that maybe an ``All Users\...\Startup'' folder must exist, but not necessarily have anything in it before it'll see your personal Startup folder. But that's just a guess.

No, the key thing here is that I only have them in either my personal startup folder (and they don't run period), or I move them to the All Users folder, and they run twice. They have never been in both places at once.

The way I know they are only in once place is by right clicking my Startup folder, doing open, then going back and right clicking Open All Users.

Now, this might make a difference, I did at one time accidently delete my personal startup folder, but as far as I know, there is nothing special about it beyond the name and location.

Check the following Reg keys:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Startup
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Common Startup

They should contain a string value pointing to the correct locations.

Aha, that was it. the first key (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Startup) was set to c:\documents...\All Users\... instead of my username like all the other folders on that page. Also, oddly enough HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Startup was set to %ALLUSERSPROFILE% instead of %USERPROFILE% like the rest.

The Common Startup was set properly, thus leading to the contents of it being run twice. So I'm guessing when I deleted the startup folder in my personal profile, it did that on it's own.

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to remember to check there in the future for problems with the folders listed in those parts of the registry.