It's possible Bitcoin ran and bailed out because something was wrong. 
debug.log should tell something if that was the case.  What OS are you 
using?  I wonder if we need Admin privilege and don't realize it.  Stuff 
that requires Admin can't start on startup on Vista.

Program shortcuts have multiple tabs of settings with lots of little 
details.  I'll try the startup folder code and see if I can reproduce 
the problem.  Every other systray icon on my computer is in the startup 
folder, and it makes it easy for users to manage all their autoruns in 
one place.  The things in the registry key tend to be devious hidden 
bloatware.

I implemented the code to flush wallet.dat whenever it's closed so we'll 
be able to tell users they only need to backup wallet.dat.  You can 
restore just wallet.dat and it'll re-download the rest.  I'll have to do 
another stress test before release.

mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
> Well, the code worked and made a shortcut in the startup folder. For 
> some reason it didn't automatically start when booting, but worked fine 
> when you clicked on it in the menu. Now I tried making a shortcut 
> manually, and this time it works on autostart, don't know why. I could 
> try again with the older code.
> 
>> I got it, I see you checked in the startup folder code before changing
>> it to registry.  I don't see any visible problems in the code.  I guess
>> it depends what exactly the problem was with it not always working by
>> default.  Was there a Vista/UAC security problem?
>>
>> Satoshi Nakamoto wrote:
>>> What was the problem with the shortcut in the startup folder?  If   
>>> you could send me the code, I'd like to take another look and see   
>>> if I can see what the problem was.  The first strcat in the   
>>> registry code should be strcpy, otherwise it would fail   
>>> intermittently.  If the same code was in the shortcut one, maybe   
>>> that was the problem.
>>>
>>> mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
>>>> I made a Windows installer for the latest version of Bitcoin,   
>>>> which includes the autostart and minimize to tray features. The   
>>>> installer makes a start menu shortcut and a startup registry   
>>>> entry. I first implemented the autostart with a shortcut to the   
>>>> startup folder, but I found out that it doesn't always work by   
>>>> default and ended up doing it with a registry entry. The registry  
>>>>  entry is removed by the uninstaller and can be also disabled from   
>>>> the options menu, so I don't think it's such a big menace to the   
>>>> user after all.
> 
> 
> 
>