90. How Do I Prevent The My Documents Folder From Opening Every Time I Start Windows XP

Occasionally you may find that when you boot up your pc, instead of arriving at your desktop the My Document folder opens instead. To remedy this proceed as follows:

PLEASE NOTE

In this exercise you will be editing the registry; therefore it is important that you make a back up of the registry BEFORE you make any alterations. For details on how to back up the registry see 62. How do I Backup the Registry in Windows XP. Alternatively create a system restore point so that, should anything go wrong, you can restore your system to its previous working state.

Click the Start button.
From the Start Menu click Run.
In the Run dialogue box type: regedit
In the Registry window navigate to the follow key: HKEY_ LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Look down the list in the Right Hand pane until you see the value: Userinit,
This value should read: C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe, (The comma at the end must also be there).
If the value is different from that shown above (It is assumed that your default drive is C:\Windows, incidentally) then Right Click on the Userinit value and, from the drop down menu, select Modify.
The Modify dialogue box will now appear.
Type in the value: C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,
Finally Click OK and then Exit the Registry.
If, after inspecting the registry, the Userinit value is correct and the problems still persists check to see what applications are starting at Windows Start up by checking in MSConfig.
To do this go click the Start button, Click Run and in the Run dialogue box type: msconfig.
In the MSConfig window click the Start up tab and check the application that are starting to see if My Documents is in the list.