Windows 7 Eliminate Auto Start Programs
By: krawl23 | Posted: 27th May 2010
Probably the most common thing that slows down Windows' loading time is
all of the programs that are configured to load at boot time. Not only do they
take a while to load, but they commonly eat up processor cycles while they're
running, which in turn causes other programs to load more slowly.
Open the Performance Information and Tools page in Control Panel, and click
the Advanced tools link on the left. If you see an alert that reads, "Startup
programs are causing Windows to start slowly," click the link to view details.
The entry corresponds to a single incident in the event log, in which a particular
program took longer to boot than usual. But despite the lone alert here, and
its Date reported indicating that the incident happened months ago, there
may be many similar entries in the log, some more recent than others.
Click the View details in the event log link to fire up Event Viewer
(eventvwr.msc), and then click the Date and Time column header to sort the
list chronologically. Since delays that happened weeks ago aren't of much
concern, focus on those from the last few days. If one program stands out as
a repeat offender, try the Level column header to group the events by severity.
There's more running on your PC than the handful of icons in the notification
area (tray) suggests, and there are several places where startup programs are
specified in addition to the Startup folder in your Start menu.
Manage Startup ProgramsThe Startup folder in the Start menu is where most people go if they want
Windows to start an application automatically when it boots. Just drag a
shortcut to the program into the folder, and Windows will do the rest. Or,
delete an existing shortcut to stop a program from loading at boot time.
Trouble is, there are many ways apart from the Startup folder to configure
startup programs, and if you're trying to solve a problem or just reduce boot
times, you need to look at them all. To see them all in one place, open the
System Configuration tool (msconfig.exe) and choose the Startup tab. Uncheck
any programs you'd rather not have running, and click Apply. Also
available is the free Autoruns tool (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinter
nals/bb963902.aspx), which, among other things, has a command-line tool
you can use to make changes when Windows won't start.
Here are all the places Windows looks for startup items:
Startup folders
There are actually two of these on your hard disk, but shortcuts in both
places show up in the Startup menu (under All Programs in your Start
menu). If you have a lot of cleanup to do, you'll find it's easier to open
Windows Explorer than to repeatedly open the Start menu. First, your
personal Startup folder is located here:
C:Users{username}AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart
MenuProgramsStartup
and programs listed therein will load automatically when you first log in
to your user account. Next, the "All Users" Startup folder here:
C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsStartup
lists the programs to load automatically when anyone logs into your PC.
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Tags: control panel, handful, loading time, few days, msc, severity, boots, start menu, advanced tools, boot time, time trouble, startup programs