when i am asked to go to start run and type in for example, regsvr32/ ishell32 a box appears on screen saying windows cannot find do i need to type in anything before. this happens all the timeexcept with msconfig. please help

What about regedit or dxdiag for example?

Some functions such as ipconfig need to be run from cmd

Also verify your spaces. For example the ishell is regsvr32 /i shell32

The spaces are necessary.