I just tested and the startup form's Open event fires before the Autoexec
macro, if you have one. So, the form appears to be the first thing to run.
If you want it to run before the switchboard, you may be able to open
another form, place code in it, and open the switchboard from that form.
However, if you are trying to run something that will allow you to cancel
the opening of the switchboard, you may be able to do it in the
switchboard's Open event and use the Cancel ability built-in there. I tried
setting Cancel = True in my startup form's Open event, the form never showed
on the screen and I received no errors.