On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 08:10:17 +0100, R.Wieser wrote:
JJ,

the Start Menu's Startup folder are run by the desktop/shell
process (EXPLORER.EXE).

Something about that :

while playing around with an iconoverlay I've several times killed the
explorer.exe process and restarted it (both to release the just unregistered
iconoverlay dll as well as to refresh the icons). I've got programs in the
startup folder creating an icon in the systray (at the right, next to the
clock). Those do not re-appear after restarting the explorer.exe process,
though your above sounds like they should. Any idea why ?

I could only guess that EXPLORER.EXE can know when it should execute the
programs in the Start Menu's Startup folder, not not. e.g. if it's executed
by USERINIT.EXE or not. It may not be the actual case, but it's one of the
many possibilities.

Or, said otherwise : are you sure that running the startup folders contents
is part of the explorer.exe process.

Yes, I'm sure of it. It applies to all Windows version.

The Start Menu's Startup folder is a conversion of the old Win3.x/NT3.x
Program Manager (PROGMAN.EXE) "Startup" group - which is not a directory in
the file system. That too, if the shell is changed to other than
PROGMAN.EXE, none of the programs listed in the Startup group will be
executed.

In XP, you can test it yourself by changing the shell to CMD.EXE. Note:
don't use anything else which doesn't have the capability to run any other
program (e.g. Calculator). This is to make sure that you can change the
shell back to EXPLORER.EXE. Also... I'd suggest disabling the Welcome Screen
feature from the Users control panel. Otherwise, it'll stuck in the system
startup screen with the big "welcome" text on it, and have to press
CTRL+ALT+DEL to get to the normal screen where it shows the CMD window (as
the shell) and no taskbar.