BOAC,
IIRC, semicolons are used to comment out lines in the *.ini files (good grief, it's years since I looked at these!), while square brackets indicate section headings.
Also, in XP (and 2K), the *.ini files are only present for backwards compatability with 16-bit apps, and the first line (by default) is
; for 16-bit app support
Quite what ;msconfig is doing, I know not - but it isn't functional with a ; in front of it.
SD