It may be that either adware/virus starts in normal mode and blocks
msconfig. You might want to try running regedit.exe in normal mode as it
can be blocked by these evil programs.

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Regards
Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo
> 98se, have run adaware, spybot, pccillin, checked
> taskmanager and msconfig in safe mode, as it won't run in
> regular mode. any ideas why msconfig won't run in regular
> mode? thanks