Unwanted Autoplay window on start-up

I'm running Windows XP Pro. Each time I start or re-start the computer, a small window entitled "Autoplay" appears in the upper left corner of the display.

Click here to see a screen capture of the window.

It appears to be scanning or searching a specific portion of my C: drive, because I can see familiar folder names flashing by. There is no indication of what it is searching for.

The scan continues for a minute or so, then the window closes itself. I can also close it by clicking its Cancel button. After the window closes, the computer then operates normally.

This behavior first began a couple of months ago but then occurred only intermittently. Now it is occurring each time I start the computer.

Does anyone have any ideas what's going on?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

Seems to be searching for a program to handle what's on a CD; is there a CD in the drive?

 

No, there are no discs is either of my optical drives (CD-RW or DVD).

- Jeff

 

Have you tried the msconfig startup tab or the search for autoplay.ini in your path? You can also call up taskmanager while the window's running if you're quick and check programs or processes.

EDIT: from here: If you are using Windows XP, you can disable autoplay for audio CDs by running the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and selecting Administrative Templates > System >Turn Off Autoplay. (To run the Group Policy Editor, type "gpedit.msc" in the Start menu's "Run..." box.) Another way to control autoplay is to right-click the CD's icon in Explorer, then select the Autoplay tab under "Properties ".

For older versions of Windows, Microsoft has a free "PowerToy" utility called TweakUI, that you can download

 

another view
on Windows XP Professional Edition:
1. Make sure "Auto-insert notification" is disabled by using the following steps to modify the system configuration (recommended):
1. Click on Start and then on Run. Type "gpedit.msc" and press Enter.
2. Navigate the directory structure to: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System
3. Locate the entry entitled "Turn autoplay off" and double-click to open.
4. Check the radio button of "Enabled ".
5. Set the option below of "Turn off Autoplay on:" to "All drives ".
6. Click "Apply" and exit Group Policy window.
2. Use Disk Management to un-assign the drive letter of every writing drive not used as a reading drive (optional):
1. Right-click on My Computer, click Manage, and click Disk Management.
2. Configure drive(s) to have no drive letter assignments.
3. Locate the entry entitled "Turn autoplay off" and double-click to open.
4. Exit Computer Management.
3. Install the latest Windows XP Professional Edition service pack (see Microsoft Windows Update).
4. Restart the system.

 

Even another tool to consider.