Reader told me about a vexing problem: Each time his machine booted, it produced an Internet Explorer window that declared: 'Cannot find "File:!//". Make sure the path or Internet address is correct.' Automated instructions like that can be seriously annoying. My guess is that Randy had recently installed or uninstalled a program on his computer that Windows was looking for-but couldn't find-during startup.

The solution is to use a startup monitor that shows everything attempting to run during the boot process so that you can determine which IE -related item is the offender-and then disable it.

If you're reasonably tech-savvy, I recommend using the free utility Autoruns . After running it, click the Logon tab and look for any entries that point to iexplore.exe. If you find one, clear its check box and reboot. Obviously this may involve a little trial and error, but ultimately it should solve the problem.

A similar, but simpler, approach is to run Windows' built-in Msconfig utility, click the Startup tab, and then peruse the Command column (which you may have to enlarge for full visibility) for entries containing iexplore.exe. If you find one, clear its check box, click OK, and reboot the machine.