Windows 2000 Professional Problem

[hot_pastrami]

First, I'd remove everything from your startup (startup group and registry) and reboot, and see if that solves the problem. If you have a copy of Windows XP, you can snag the file MSCONFIG.EXE from it, and run that, and use the Startup tab to make life easier. If the problem goes away, try turning things back on one by one until the culprit is found.

If that doesn't help, I'd try uninstalling any programs which have added to your right-click menu (programs like WinZIP), and see if that helps. And obviously, if you just barely installed something before the problem appeared, uninstall it.

You might also run a Windows repair... reboot with the Windows 2K CD in the drive, and when it runs setup, select the option to repair the existing installation. That can sometimes fix that kind of stuff.