thanks for the replies, everybody.

JS, the quotation marks did solve that one problem. what i do
not understand, is why XP sometimes requires quotation marks
on some delete commands in autoexec.bat and on other delete
commands in autoexec.bat, it works without quotation marks.
is there some link you could suggest for me to learn more
about the quotation marks in XP?

Malke, why do you say XP DOES NOT use autoexec.bat? it does
work on XP Pro at boot time. it does execute my delete commands.

Shenan, yes ParseAutoexec is set to 1. it was like that at XP
build time (i did not change that).

On Dec 13, 1:06 am, "Shenan Stanley" <newshel...******.com> wrote:
>
> Long file names and quotation marks at least.
> Is your Windows XP configured to parse the autoexec at startup? It doesn't
> *have* to be...
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Wayhttp://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -