Go here for a virus check (select 'auto clean'):

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

You may also want to follow up with some additional scans (second link below).

All the Best!

Have just finished running trendmicro scan and it says I'm clean.

Thanks very much, folks!

I forgot all about using trend micro; and will try the other place as well. Will report back after scanning.

Maybe this will help. Recheck the item in msconf and then reboot. Run Spybot Search and Destroy, making sure that "startup" is checked when you press the Tools button. Then click Startup after expanding the Tools list (click the + sign). Look for the item in the Value column. Info in Command Line column should give you idea what it is. If command line column is blank for that item, then it's probably a broken key in the registry. You can confirm it's the same item you see in msconfig, by unchecking it in msconfig, rebooting and rerunning spybot. If that's the right one, it won't appear in spybot the second time.

Ron