!START

Startup Helper

!START is added as the last line to AUTOEXEC.BAT/FDAUTO.BAT to provide bootstrapping services to Launch!. To make things simple, it should always be the very last line. Unless you have 'Show menu at boot' turned off in configuration, it will likely cause grief.

CALL is purposely not used, so control is handed over to !START.BAT by AUTOEXEC.BAT. Anything you place below !START may not get executed.

It is the only line added, or change made, to any system configuration files by Launch!.

At system startup, it checks LAUNCH.CFG and as configured, loads the keyboard shortcut utility and font persistence. It also adds the Launch! directory to the PATH environment variable (meaning all Launch! components can be run from any directory, most importantly !). If a custom prompt has been set, it will also be applied here. If the menu is set to open at boot, it will then execute !.EXE.

It means there is not constant modification of your startup files, and configuration is centralized in one place (LAUNCH.CFG). No manual modifications to startup files are required. And Launch! configuration won't be modified or overriden by other programs.

You can open !START.BAT yourself to inspect what's going on. If you make manual changes however, they will be overriden by the Configuration tool.

!START is always added to your startup batch file by Install. It is a transient batch file and does not use any memory.