Windows 2000 does not have the MSCONFIG program that was provided with Windows 98.
General Information
Windows 2000 does not have the MSCONFIG program that was provided with Windows 98.
You can use the Windows XP version of MSCONFIG.
Copy the file msconfig.exe from the c:\windows\system folder to the Windows 2000 c:\winnt\system32 folder.
Download the msconfig.exe Windows XP version file from our site if you do not have it easily accessible, this version will work with windows 2000.
If you download this file, save it to the c:\winnt\system32 folder so you can use the Start/Run method to access it, or save it to the desktop, that way you can access it by clicking on the icon it will create on your desktop.
Click | Start | Run | and type msconfig on the text box and click the OK button to start MSCONFIG
ignore the error messages you may get about not finding the following files
config.sys
autoexec.bat
win.ini
system.ini
Click the startup tab
Check or Uncheck the check boxes of the programs you want to run or not run
It is best to write down which programs were checked so you can have a copy of them for later reference. Some of the startup entries are from anti-virus programs and must be re-checked after finishing any troubleshooting.
Worth While Tip about the contents of the Startup Tab: you can open in a second window a program like Word or Paint, so that one window has MSCONFIG and the other Word.
Then when you view the contents of startup in MSCONFIG press the PrintScreen key on the top right corner of the keyboard (on some systems it only works if you also press the Shift key ie, shift and printscreen.
Pressing Print Screen places a copy of the screen on the clipboard, then you can switch to the other program (i.e. Word) , create a New blank document (i.e. | File | New | Page | ) and from the top menu select | Edit | Paste | , this will paste a picture copy of the viewable portion of the startup window, then you can go back, scroll to more startup items and again press Print Screen, switch to word and paste that window as well, then save the Word page or print it out to the printer for future reference.
Note:
The msconfig file is a simple stand-alone program so it runs on any computer, you just have to get the correct version, the win98 version works in win98 and NT 4, the XP
version works on XP and later versions of 2000
also depending on your 2000 installation, you can also have the equivalent functionality of msconfig via the command path.... Programs , accessories, system tools, ...
When the win98 version is used with NT 4.0, and error is shown because the win98 version of msconfig allows you to view/modify the contents of autoexec.bat and config.sys files, but win NT 4.0, 2000 and XP do NOT use startup files like config.sys and autoexec.bat so its not possible to view/edit them. If you use the msconfig version from win98 in NT4, it will attempt to open these files but end up giving an error.
The XP version does not even try to open these files since it can use them in either 2000 or XP
Config.sys and autoexec.bat can be used in dedicated situations where old win95/98 programs run in the special mode. In this case there is a config.sys file that applies to only that one program and only while that program is open it its window. In this case config.sys can be used but windows does not really see it, only that one applications, therefore msconfig does not see it either.