You may have a virus/spyware hijack

download the Stinger from here and run it to make sure that A-V-disabling
viruses are not present on your PC
http://download.nai.com/products/mcafee-avert/stinger.exe

- update your virus scanner and run a full system scan of all files.

Reboot to Safe Mode and run CWShredder - to remove variants of the
CoolWebSearch hijacker.
http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html

Use CWShredder, the removal tool:
http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip
http://www.merijn.org/files/CWShredder.exe
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/CWShredder.exe
http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip

download AdAware from www.lavasoftusa.com, install, update, and run it to
remove spyware, adware,
and other such nasties from your system.

Rick,

Not having systray shouldn't cause significant problems on booting (see later)
but I am intrigued by this SYS entry you mention.  Could you please post full
details of this entry as it could possibly be launching some sort of malware.

Systray entry.
To restore this to MSConfig | Startup requires the use of Regedit.  Be very
careful as making a mistake here could cause considerable problems.
Start, Run, enter Regedit in the box and click OK.  Regedit will now open.
In the left hand pane click the + signs and navigate to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Now in the right hand pane, right click, select New and then select String
Value from the fly out menu.
Right click on the new value which is probably named "New Value #1" and select
Modify and enter
SysTray.Exe
in the box labelled Value data and click OK.
Right again on the new value and this time select Rename and change the name
to SystemTray
Close regedit and reboot.  You should now have your systray back.