I helped a relative clean an infected machine from lots of virus/trojan/adware. Everything seems ok now and ad-aware, avg, stinger produce zero hits. However, when the mahchine is booted, the c:\windows\system 32 folder pops up. I've checked registry run keys and startup folder. Can't think of anything else to be causing this. thanks for your help, sidel

sidel, If you happen to be using a Dell Dimension system having a factory installed Creative Labs Audigy2 sound card, after an unknown period of time and with an unknown trigger event, a registry entry will be added that causes the System32 folder window to open at system startup. Open the MSCONFIG utility (Start/Run type in MSCONFIG click OK) and deselect (uncheck) the /L:ENG entry from the STARTUP tab, click Apply, click OK and restart your computer. Tufenuf

Thanks for the info Tufenuf! It is a dell machine with an audigy sound card. I couldn't locate the /L:ENG entry, but did find two (with no description) related to system32. As a test, I unchecked them and restarted. The folder no longer appears. Thanks again for your reply. I did a more thorough search on computing.net and found similiar articles so I'll search more carefully before posting. -Sidel