There is a file in the Start-up menu named ’starter.exe’. This file refers to ‘Ensoniq Mixer’ which I believe is a Trojan Horse virus. Attempts to disable stater.exe have failed, as it is simply re-enabled on the next reboot. How can I stop this from loading on startup? The computer is a Pentium III running Windows 98.

The good news is Ensoniq Mixer is not a virus, it is just a mixer which comes with your sound card and is very insistent that it loads on at Windows startup! You can probably see the mixer icon in your Windows system tray (the icons next to the clock on the taskbar). Other people have also experienced problems trying to disable the mixer. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘System’ control panel. In the window that appears, click the ‘Device Manager’ tab. Expand ‘Sound, video and game controllers’. Double-click your sound device (e.g., Sound Blaster AudioPCI 64V) to open the device properties. In the window that appears, click the ‘Settings’ tab. Untick the option ‘Add mixer icon to taskbar’. If you are having difficulty locating the option, it may be located as the last option under the ‘Configuration’ sub-heading (this will depend on your system configuration). Click OK to close the properties. Then click OK to close the Device Manager. You should now be able to remove ’starter.exe’ from your Startup menu. It may also be worthwhile to disable ’starter.exe’ in msconfig if this has not already been done. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘msconfig’ (without the quotes) and click OK. In the System Configuration Utility window, click the ‘Startup’ tab. Look through the list of startup items for ’starter.exe’. If this is present in the list, untick the entry (if not already disabled). Click OK to close the System Configuration Utility. Reboot your computer, and you should not have the problem anymore.