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*.ini files opening in text boxes at boot up.
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Esarhaddon
Denver, CO
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October 27, 2020
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January 16, 2021 - 5:12 pm
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After a recent install, I was getting two notepad windows opening the desktop.ini files at EVERY bootup. this was not a real problem but even the primary and advanced team at M$ had no idea or had forgotten what .ini files were. I had to explain to them that they were basically instruction sets for about every windows process there is and they are scattered throughout your computer. They claimed they had never seen them as an icon on their desktop. I was having fits getting them both off my screen and to quit opening them as txt windows at bootup. After about an hour they reminded me of something so simple and something I have not used in years. The old DOS attrib (attribute) command. It was so simple that I thought I would drop it here as a reminder to others.

In an opened cmd window just type in: attrib, then either + or -, and what you want it to do, and then the file location and name.

In my case it would look like this:

attrib +s +h C:\Users\Charlie\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\desktop.ini

THe +s is to make it a system file and +h to make it hidden. this hid the desktop icon and the system understood it was for system use only and not to display it as a .txt file.

An added benefit this somehow fixed another problem I was having. I did not have the desktop folder on my directory tree. fixing the above problem put the desktop folder back into the directory tree where it belonged.
For complete instructions on the attrib command look here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/attrib

and: https://www.computerhope.com/attribhl.htm#:~:text=The%20attrib%20command%20allows%20an%20MS-DOS%20and%20Windows,make%20a%20file%20hidden%20using%20the%20attrib%20command.

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Richard Pedersen
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January 16, 2021 - 5:17 pm
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Thanks for the great tip!

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