Notepad opens on boot up

[john stolarczyk]

When I boot up, reboot, Windows Notepad opens automatically with an error box "! Access Denied" - when I ok that it leaves a Notepad blank screen open. I close that and boot up is complete and I can work normally.

Driving me nuts! any ideas? Cannot see anything in startup.

 

[Trouble]

Right click the taskbar, choose task manager select the startup tab
See what's there, if anything references notepad..... right click it and choose disable

 

[john stolarczyk]

All looks clear. See attached file. Any other ideas?

 

[Trouble]

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
I use it often to track such stuff down.

 

[john stolarczyk]

Deleted all startup items. Problem still occurs. Only change is that options do not appear when I right click taskbar. Restoring windows host process (rundll32) makes it work again. But notepad still launches.

 

[Trouble]

Go back an un-do whatever you might have done previously using autoruns, then....

Try clean booting the system and see if that produces any relief. Run it like that for a day or two and check Windows Update manually in the interim to make sure everything is up to date.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135
Use the steps for Windows 8 / 8.1 (same for Windows 10)
Easily done and easily undone.
You're basically just disabling all Startup Items and all non-Microsoft services. Do no mess with the Microsoft services. Be sure to check the box to hide them before proceeding.