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Replace the Missing msconfig File

BY STANLEY ZAROWIN

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2002. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

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Q. In the January 2002 column you mentioned using msconfig to deselect startup applications when Windows becomes unstable. However, while Windows 98 and XP have the msconfig file, for some reason I can’t find it in Windows 2000. Can you help?

A. My apologies. You’re right, for some mysterious reason Microsoft left that handy msconfig file out of Windows 2000. However, there are at least two work-arounds.

First, if you can get a copy of msconfig.exe from an old Windows 98 copy, it may work just fine in Windows 2000. You’ll find it in c:windowssystem; place it in c:winntsystem32. Ignore the error messages when it cannot find config.sys, autoexec.bat, win.ini and system.ini. Then just click on the startup tab and proceed to check or uncheck the check boxes of the programs you want to run or not run.

The second option is to go to http://thetechguide.com and download a link for the XP version of msconfig; that should also work with Windows 2000.