You know, I've often seen in the ini files for programs a line that says "Disable Splash Screen at Startup" - sometimes it's even a selectable option inside the program - in the preferences. I think the idea there is you want to save time by not seeing the splash. Also, you can comb through your registry settings for those programs and look for the splash screen key, or even add a new DWORD, which you can then set to zero or one as the case may be. Another option would be to get the program available here: http://www.digitallis.co.uk/pc/SplashKiller/index.html It's called splashkiller, and it hides splash screens, without having to modify registries or hack the app. What I mean by hack the app is to modify the splash graphics kept inside certain .dll files for the application. This gets a little too technical for me, but if you want to know more there's quite a bit of info out there on web. Suffice it to say there's multiple ways of hiding this info from prying eyes, and I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. It reminds me of a time when I had my computer upgraded at a local shop. I came in on the day of delivery to pick it up, only to find one of the techs playing a hacked version of a game on my own computer, which he had apparently installed without my permission. Much yelling insued. Regards, Karl