Well taneth it seems you dint do enough research on this. When it comes to
computers never presume anything.

"[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Exp lorer\Shell Folders]
Startup="C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup""

What you found is just an entry that gives the path for one of the windows
shell folders. As you must have noticed there is a complete list of these
shell folders. These entries just define the location of these folders.

"This may have happened when I moved the folder in the first place, which
means Windows made the change without notification and without checking that
it wasn't creating such a double reference."

No, this did not happen because of your moving the folder. These are the
windows' default location of these folders.(Note it dint change to <your
profile>\desktop where you had moved the folder in the first place. Rather
because of your moving the folder the applications were not starting up.

Now to explain how this works:

=>While installation of a program if anything is to be started up at startup
it puts its icon in either <your username>\start menu\programs\startup or
All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. This depends whether the program is
being installed for all users or for you only.(you may have noticed this
while installing some program it asks you whether you want to install it for
all users or for you only)

=>Windows stores the startup items at two locations in the registry:
1>HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\R un
2>HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\R un

If the entries are in both these locations then obviously windows will try
to run that program twice. Now, some programs are built to handle that and
some are not. The ones that are not will obviously start causing problems.

Now this is what happened when you copied all the files from your all users
startup folder to your <username>\startup folder:
There was already an entry for programs to startup from all users in one of
these and another one was created as soon as you did this.

This was the whole problem ->drilled down

Enjoy this christmas week and the year ahead
yogi

"Taneth" wrote:

> Well, the program you suggested
> > http://kgiii.info/windows/all/general/startupapps.html
> didn't solve the problem, but it did lead me to the solution (it is for this
> reason I rate the response as "answered the question", but it could use an
> intermediate level). If both lists were reacting as one then the only logical
> conclusion is that they are referencing the same folder. This would also
> explain why the other folder had no effect.
> I did a search in the registry and this is what I came up with:
>
> [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Exp lorer\Shell Folders]
> Startup="C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup"
>
> where "All Users" should have been my username.
>
> This may have happened when I moved the folder in the first place, which
> means Windows made the change without notification and without checking that
> it wasn't creating such a double reference.