Ive just done a re-install on my parents HP Pavilion.

All I have done to it is run the recovery CD, uninstall the useless junk which comes with an HP machine (Norton free trial, HP photosmart, random drivers for printers I have never owned yada yada yada), run Defrag and install firefox, thunderbird, Popfile, Comodo, AVG, Openoffice and AutoCAD LT.

It is now slick and fast and boots up in about 30 seconds instead of the 10 minutes it was taking before, but it has taken to opening the c:\Windows\System32 folder in an explorer window at bootup. I cant figure out why this is happening, its not in the Startup folder and as far as I know I havnt asked it to.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening and, more importantly, how to stop it from happening?

In spybot, theres a section that shows you all the startup entries in the registry, as well as the stuff in the startup folder. You might find something in there.

good idea shakey, Ill give that a whirl