Most of the time when I restat my PC, and sometimes when i turn it on from being shut off, the blue background of Windows ME will come up, but no taskbar or anything, only the mouse pointer and a blue background. When I press ctl/alt/del, the bright blue "System is busy" error screen comes up. When I press ctl/alt/del again and again and agin, nothing happens, so i have to cut power to the pc!!!! I know this cannot be healthy for my PC. How do I fix it so the PC actually STARTS on startup?? Any help would be, again and as usual, GREATLY appreciated. THanks in advance all viewers and posters!!

You might want to clear up your HijackThis issues before troubleshooting other issues.

That being said: what is the exact full error message?

Is "System is busy" all that you see?

Having to Power Off the computer before Windows loads is a fairly benign operation.

Have you tried F8 to Safe Mode Options then choose Last Known Good Configuration?

How long have you had this problem? Any coincidence with the Hijack issues?

no, i dont think it is connected to my HJT issues, as that just came recently. However, the message that comes up is that the system is busy trying to bring up the task manager after i hit ctl/alt/del. Basically, "system is busy" appears in big lettes followed a smaller min-para. saying hit a key to return to windows and wait for the task manager or press ctl/alt/del to restart. I have not tried this Last Known Good Comfiguration. What exactly does it do? Again, this problem has been around for a while, but i highly doubt it is anyway entangled with the HJ issues.

Last Known Good Configuration is similar to System Restore. If this had been a new problem it might have taken you back to a working setup.

I would recommend resolving HJT first.

It would appear that the Task Manager is set to startup in some way.

I notice you are working in MSCONFIG selective mode.

Anyway clearing up HJT first would be best. Otherwise you might just be tripping over two lines of fixes.

What happens when you are up & running & you run: Start/Run/ taskmgr

ill get back when i fix the hjt problem. thanks

ok i think this issue went away by itself. however, i have another problem with my WIndows ME startup. When i start up my PC, i get an error message saying "ibm.0001.exe" cannot be found. when i click ok, the window goes away, nothing happens. but still, where does this thing come from? Also: Issue #2: upon startup a windows installer window comes up, saying "preparing to install". If i let the window continue without clicking cancel, the message "failed install of Microsoft Home Publishing 2000: please insert windows me CD". I dont have the ME Cd as it was installed on my pc upon purchae and i dont have the disk. I dont need the program "home publishing 2000" or whatever, but how do i keep this installer window from coming up? Lastly: Issue#3: How do i decide which programs run during startup and what appears on system tray? Several icons are missing from the system tray after startup, such as volume control and several programs such as AVG AV are not starting up automatically anymore. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!!

msconfig | startup should list all your starting programs. However there are many other things starting such as services etc.

Autoruns is a great freeware utility that monitors absolutly everything that auto starts:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...autoruns.shtml

Also HijackThis has a startup section here:
Open HijackThis again:

Choose: None of the above just start the program.

Other stuff | Config | Misc Tools |

Make 3 seperate logs:

1. Generate StarupList log
2. List also minor sections (full)
3. List empty section (complete)

Please post all 3 as attachments to your next post if you want further review.

I see nothing online RE: "ibm.0001.exe" which is strange. Volume control has an on/off switch under Control Panel | Sounds & Audio Devices. Is there an option section in AVG for auto start?

As to the installer perhaps this may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;290301

The atartup log is attached.

First off do not run 2 anti virus programs. Remove either AVG or Norton. This can cause many issues.

Did you check the Installer cleanup for "home publishing 2000"?

Can you find "ibm.0001.exe" via start | search? If so click properties & see if you see the program association.