Programatic launching of application on windows startup

Question

I have a particular piece of software that i wish to load on windows startup. Under normal circumstances i would simply place a shortcut in the startup folder or an entry in the run key in the registry.

Unfortunately and for an unknown reason this application throws a win32 execption whenever that is done - and i am assuming it is because an element of windows has not been loaded that is vital to this application.

Once windows has actually loaded i can double click on the icon and it runs fine. So my question is - is there a programmatic solution to this? I have already tried a console app launcher that sleeps for n seconds and then launches but all that seems to do is delay the startup of windows.

Does anyone have any creative solutions? I am open to anything from a windows service to c#, vb, batch files.. etc

Thx

Answer 1

Have a look at AUTOEXEC.BAT. But be careful!!

Answer 2

Can you run it as a service, or write a shell service which will attempt to start it up? That way you will have built in support for response on failure and delay time before trying again.