Does anyone know of a free or inexpensive program like MacroExpress that will start and start different applications automatically. I've used MacroExpress with success in most cases but I find that it does interfere with some programs when it's left running in the background.
Have you tried the Windows script host (there's both a command line and GUI oriented version)? http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/default.asp?contentid=28001169