Firefox won't start on boot

Question

I have a sporadic, but consistent problem with Firefox. Shortly after booting the computer, I try to launch Firefox, but it doesn't start. I open the task manager and can see firefox.exe running under the Processes tab. I will be patient, having waited for other things that might be monopolizing the memory (such as a startup AV scan) to finish. A couple of times, I waited as long as ten minutes, but the Firefox window never opened. My only solution is to reboot the computer. At that point I get several error messages:
"DDE Window Server not responding / End Program?"
and
"Acrodist.exe not responding / End Program?"
and then "Firefox is not responding / End Program?"
I did research on DDE Server Window and found that I could disable it in Windows Services - which I did. Yet, the error message still appears.
Running Windows XP with SP3.
Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

Hello gabryant, sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.
You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
* [http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/default.aspx Microsoft Safety Scanner]
* [http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/ MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware]
* [http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350 Anti-Rootkit Utility - TDSSKiller]
* [http://general-changelog-team.fr/en/downloads/viewdownload/20-outils-de-xplode/2-adwcleaner AdwCleaner] (for more info, see this [http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/ alternate AdwCleaner download page])
* [http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro/ Hitman Pro]
* [http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/ ESET Online Scanner]
[http://windows.microsoft.com/MSE Microsoft Security Essentials] is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.
Further information can be found in the [[Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware]] article.
also, delete in your [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Windows profile folder] the [http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file User.js] file you already have(except if you created).
The user.js file does not exist by default. If you create the file, forget it, if you have not create the file then delete the User.js file, to see if the problem goes away (some programs create and write in the file also).
thank you