Where oh where is my msconfig.exe?

Do I still have it and it's been hidden by an installed app or is something else going on?

Published on March 20, 2008 By BigDogBigFeet In Personal Computing

Hi all,

Well as a result of Po's thread Virtual Memory Question I've discovered that when I click on start, run and type in msconfig and press enter ...... nothing happens. I fired up explorer and searched my windows sub, no go and did a system Search twice and again no go. Did some web searching and discovered one of 2 possibilities an installed app has it hidden from my through a system key setting or in the worst case malware. At present I'm not suspecting malware. System has no other problems currently and it's possible any of these progs could have it hidden: Ad-Aware 2007 Free, SpyBot Search and Destroy (I'm new to both of these) I also have Tune-Up Utilities 2006 and please don't gasp, Norton System Works(well mostly, lol).

Anywho, I thought I'd post to see if anyone has some insight as to what's caused this and what Reg Key(s) might be involved. I'm thinking that's probably what's happened.

Comments (Page 5)

vStyler

on Mar 21, 2008

Thx man, I'll give it a shot in th emorning when my head is clear.

Preciate it.

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Mar 21, 2008

ok here is what I did I uninstalled all my sd programs via sdc after uninstalling impulse. Still no go..
So I check startups and find a logitech mouse setpoint driver. Deleted it and uninstalled the program. Deleted all prefetch files in windows prefetch folder. ran %temp% and deleted all temp files in the temp folder. Then restarted the computer ... after the restart ran a reg cleaner called Clean My PC registry cleaner. Ran msconfig and it's back and everything is normal.
I suspect it is a conflict with maybe the set point driver for logitech caused the problem and it may have reacted with a sd program like impulse maybe?
Anyone else have any luck as this or running like wise programs?

SGT

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Mar 21, 2008

Going to try and duplicate the same problem now that I fixed it again. This time watching to see where it stops showing the msconfig.
Wish me luck!
SGT

Daiwa

on Mar 21, 2008

Your comment about the prefetch files caught my eye - obviously it's safe to get rid of them? Any precautions to take first?

No Logitech stuff on my rig, BTW.

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Mar 21, 2008

any prefetch that is needed will be replaced when you rerun the program and it will write a new file there again

no problems there and that be all it is - a prefetch file left over from some installer...
which one I'm not sure yet - trying to reproduce the problem again now

SGT

BigDogBigFeet

on Mar 22, 2008

Alright guys, I can see you've been having fun. I worked big O.T. just got home and I'll have to go back in tomorrow. My brain is toast so, I'm not going to rig maint. tonight. I'd only make mistakes. I'll keep an eye on the thread and see what progress you guys make. Thought it was a program conflict a number of times for sure. Thanks all. Specially Yrag. Gets to the bottom of stuff for sure.

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Mar 22, 2008

I'm stumped for now...
But I made a backup of the ugly partition before I fixed it.
So gona load it backup and run a different plan of action for the fix this time and see where it is.
Looks to be something for sure in the regs. Will do a different type of edit this next time around tomorrow afternoon. Working in the morning and should get the partition loaded in the morning before I go.
Till then - best fix is as I did already.
Thus I've reinstalled all programs with Impulse and no problems except for wrong versions for some as with IP and WB beta.
When updating with sdc for wb beta got a activation error - but after restart no problems with wb.
Abit wild - but it is a go for a fix here...

more tomorrow afternoon on the direct cause of it...

SGT

PoSmedley

on Mar 22, 2008

I check startups and find a logitech mouse setpoint driver.

I have an LG wireless mouse.

Everything still good here. Getting ready to break down and install my SD software. I'm jonesing.

PoSmedley

on Mar 22, 2008

Opened Impulse, It asked to restart to apply update. Restarted.
Installed DesktopX through Impulse..rebooted
Spybot- SD Resident popped up that ctfmon.exe was trying to add to start-up. I've had Spybot running for 2 days and this is the first time that popped up when booting. I denied it.
Checked msconfig...it opened but took a bit longer. Made me nervous waiting.

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Mar 22, 2008

No Po it was not the setpoint drivers or any SDC or Impulse program that was the cause. I'm backing up again what I have fixed and then reloading the bad partition at this very moment. I feel it is a reg that was set by a bad install or something. Will know here in a few hrs from. But as I see it - no problems with Impuls at all. I reinstalled all my sd programs again using Impulse and it worked fine. Except WB version was wrong and so was the IP it installed.

SGT

BigDogBigFeet

on Mar 22, 2008

New info system at startup is using about 120MB too much. Seems to be distributed amoung many processes. I usually kill Ituneshelper which usually loaded at 9.4MB now loading at about 18MB. Soundman was another I would tend to manually kill usually about 4MB recently loading at over 10MB. Many other processes look heavy in memory consumption.

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Mar 22, 2008

Well it is a no brainer here - backup of the ugly partition will not load. I have mine fixed with what I did already. Suspect it is a bad reg for something. I checked all the prefetch files in a reload of them to see if it was one of them. Nope not that either. So had to be something in the temp folder and reg. Thus I'm stumped without being able to reproduce the problem again.

SGT

PoSmedley

on Mar 22, 2008

usually kill Ituneshelper which usually loaded at 9.4MB

I usually run WInPatrol to manage my start-up programs. Yrag has advised me not to install it this time around. So, I don't know how to kill iTunes Helper and now I have Quicktime showing up in my system tray at start-up.

I'm going to have to update iTunes when I activate it for my son's ipod and I know it's gonna want to load all kinds of crap in my start-up.

Any help on how to kill these 2 on start-up?

BigDogBigFeet

on Mar 22, 2008

Press ctrl alt del brings up task manager. Click on Processes tab fFind Ituneshelper and press end process. I think you can also right click on the Itunes Icon if showing in sys tray and kill it that way. Be careful using the task manager to kill a process you don't want to have the wrong one highlighted when you press end process.

PoSmedley

on Mar 22, 2008

Press ctrl alt del brings up task manager

I don't want to have to do that everytime I boot. Is there a way to keep it from starting up at all when I boot?

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