[waldo22]

OK, got it.

Here's the way to do this:

Instead of using the REMOTEXBMC program, just use EventGhost.

It has a built-in plugin for controlling XBMC, and a plugin to make the original xbox remote work is now in SVN.

Here is my tutorial on the subject:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=45337

All you have to do is have EventGhost run XBMC (and any other programs you want to run at startup) under it's "autostart" list of macros.

It turns out that things in this registry key...
HkeyCurrentUser -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrrentVersion -> run
(or Hkey Local Machine, for all users)
And the "Programs -> Startup" folder BOTH need explorer.exe as the shell in order to run.