This might be what you want:

FileMon monitors and displays file system activity on a system in real-time. Its advanced capabilities make it a powerful tool for exploring the way Windows works, seeing how applications use the files and DLLs, or tracking down problems in system or application file configurations. Filemon's timestamping feature will show you precisely when every open, read, write or delete, happens, and its status column tells you the outcome. FileMon is so easy to use that you'll be an expert within minutes. It begins monitoring when you start it, and its output window can be saved to a file for off-line viewing. It has full search capability, and if you find that you're getting information overload, simply set up one or more filters.

Filemon from Sysinternals(Microsoft)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896642.aspx

Here you go: http://jazper.dcmembers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/disablestart.zip

EDIT: I took Carol's idea for hotkeys and made a change.  Shift+Ctl+E will Hide the Start Button, Shift+Ctl+D will Show theStart button. The link above has the new changes in it.



This is *not* a service application. What you should do is put it in your StartUp group so when you log in,it'll launch and run in the background.  There is no GUI. It runs as "DisableStart.exe"

I only tested this on XP SP2


j.

Good freeware components outside of CodeGears native VCL socket components or if you want to avoid Winsock API then ICS (http://www.overbyte.be) and if you are willing to pay for commercial components the IP*Works (http://www.nsoftware.com) components are very good as well.