You are asking the exact right question; I may have obscured the answer. You have described exactly how I have my system configured, so you clearly have the right idea.

Hardware profiles are contained within User Profiles--which we are going to use as "Function" Profiles, as discussed earlier. You configure the User ("Function") Profile to open with whatever Windows settings and programs you wish to have running when you log in. The hardware profile is used to tell Windows which devices to start when you log into your User Profile, or what settings to use for each device. If you set only a single hardware profile for a User Profile, then that's how it will initialize when you log in. Just remember that you can have multiple hardware profiles, and that this is a particularly good thing with portable computers.

One more thing. You might not only not have a machine to use for music only; you might have to share it with others. Windows 2000 and upward allow you to isolate User Profiles from each other. If other people use the machine, learn how to do this (I leave it as an exercise for the student). You can then set up a "Guest" profile which does not have administrator privileges, but can go online, access printers and whatever programs you choose to allow, but not log into your profile(s), change settings or even view directories other than those you allow. This is a really good idea if you have kids, roommates, and/or store any type of sensitive material on your machine ("sensitive" meaning you don't want anyone else to see or mess with it). Even if none of this is so, it's still good practice to require a password to log in.

To conclude here, go to Windows Help/Index/User Profiles and /Hardware Profiles for specifics; there are links which will direct you to the settings you need to make. Happy hacking!

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."