Strange Box on desktop

Whenever I boot up (winxp dreaded home edition) I get a little box
that has "title" in the title bar, then a yellow triangle with an exclamation point and the word "Topic" next to it. Underneath it is an OK box. When I click ok it disappears. Anyone know what it is? How I get rid of it?

Also, is there a trick to finding all the .dll files on the computer that have an icon picture? I type *.dll and the files are there but no pics.

Thanks

 

I looked, but couldln't figure out what could be causing it as there isn't anything that gives it away. How do I figure out what is causing it? There's no program that is attached to it. Can't find any association by right clicking on it.

 

boot in safe mode. does it occur here? if not, then odds are good u've got something in startup as already mentioned.

the easy way to solve that - given it's not a bad guy - is use msconfig as mentioned. remove EVERYTHING by unchecking and rebooting. then, if no error, use msconfig again and start adding checks back 1 x 1 w/ reboot & test until the error returns. when the error returns, u'll have u'r culprit. u'r basic test on each item individually in startup.

u should probably look into a startup prog like mike lin's control panel. makes this easier in my book

 

Thanks, all.

 

wiry--Does your last post mean that the problem is solved? If so please tell us which fix was the solution.
If not, have a look here to determine what each item on the Start|Run|type msconfig|OK|Startup tab is connected to and whether it is good/necessary to have it there
http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
There really are very few programs you need to have start at boot in WinXP.

 

no ... i haven't solved that problem. haven't had time to work on it yet.

will let you know when i do.

 

Just a note here. If you use msconfig to do this you can just log off and then log back on instead of rebooting. No biggy here but it can save you a bit of time over rebooting.

 

thanks ... I wouldn't have thought of that.

 

OK I found it. I had recently uninstalled aol to get rid of a new security version they have that I found I didn't like. I uninstalled it and reinstalled a previous version. Apparently it left something in the start-up menu.
I found it. Here is what caused the little yellow triangle in the box:
"C:\Program Files\AOL9.0\aol.exe-b "

thanks ... it was very annoying.

Best trick was to go to log off. Saved me a lot of time.

Wiry

 

Thanks for letting us know.