Sometimes though you may want to add a program to autostart. What are the benefits of doing this? The main benefit is that the program is ready for usage directly after the Windows desktop is loaded.

Lets say you want to configure Windows so that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer starts automatically with the operating system, so that you can start your web browsing right after the desktop appears.

Internet Explorer offers no switch to make it autostart with Windows, making it a perfect example for this guide. Some programs offer switches to add them to the autostart, and it is usually better to use the switches to do that.

The instructions are however always the same for programs that have no auto start options.

How To Autostart Programs

Here is what you need: You need to know the location of the startup folder in your Windows operating system, and you need a program shortcut to place in the autostart folder.

• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
• Windows Vista: C:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
• Windows 7: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Just open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder. You can alternatively paste the path into the path field in Windows Explorer, but only if you replace username with the name of the logged in Windows user. Otherwise you will receive an error message.

We still need the program shortcut and that may be harder to locate. If you are lucky you already have the program on your computer desktop. If not you may need to locate it on your hard drive.

Most programs are installed in C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) if a 64-bit system of Windows is used. For this guide, we are adding Internet Explorer to the startup of a 64-bit Windows system.

Internet Explorer in this case is located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer. It is a good idea to open a second Windows Explorer window as it makes it a lot easier to move the program to the startup folder.

Place the two folders next to each other, hold the left mouse button down on the program that you want to add to the startup of the operating system and drag it to the startup folder. Release the mouse button there. A program shortcut should now be visible in the autostart folder.

You can test if the program is loaded during startup by restarting your computer.

There are however programs that are required shortly after system boot, usually because they need to be used all the time, or display relevant data that is needed.

A viable option in this case is to delay the application launch slightly, so that it does not interfere with the operating system startup, but becomes available shortly after the OS has loaded the desktop.

The Add App button can be used to add programs to the delayed startup. The program unfortunately does not tap into the existing startup items to delay them. Applications can be added via the Add App button. All local executable files can be selected. It is furthermore possible to select a custom startup delay in seconds for each application, and configure launch parameters which is optional.

LaunchLater adds itself to the Windows start menu to execute the delayed programs after the system startup. It is necessary to delete the items that have been added to the app from their original startup locations to avoid conflicts.

Launch Later is available for download at the Codeplex profile site. The program requires a version of the Microsoft .NET Framework, but the developer fails to mention which. An interesting alternative is Startup Delayer, which integrates nicely with the the existing autostart configuration.

Today Autoruns for Windows 10 has been released to the public. The new version of the popular autostart manager is offered as a free download from Technet.

It is furthermore still possible to run Autoruns directly from Live.Sysinternals.com.

The official blog post mentions the following changes in Autoruns 10.

This major update to Autoruns introduces the ability to scan offline Windows installations, adds .exe and .cmd extension handlers, defaults to hiding Windows entries to reduce noise in the common use case, and includes bug fixes.

Probably the biggest improvement for many is the ability to scan offline Windows installations. This feature can be used by clicking on File > Analyze Offline System. The system root directory and user profile of the offline system need to be selected.

This opens up new possibilities for dual boot systems as it is now possible to analyze the startup items of one of the systems from the other.

autoruns for windows 10

One of the best tips for new users of Autoruns is to hide Microsoft and Windows entries from the software. This ensures that only third party startup items are displayed in the interface. This can be set in the Options menu of the autostart manager.

Autoruns For Windows 10 can be downloaded directly from Technet. The portable software is compatible with all client versions of Windows from Windows XP on and all server versions from Windows Server 2003 on.

The most popular option to reduce the lag at startup is to remove some or even all of the autostart programs so that they are not launched automatically anymore during Windows startup.

But that’s not always practicable especially for programs that are used regularly by the user.

Start-Q offers another option to handle startup programs to reduce the impact they have on the computer system’s performance.

The idea is to provide a startup queue that manages when and how the programs are launched.

The program window displays a list of all startup programs. The first step in the configuration process of Start-Q is to move those entries that the user wants to autostart in the queue below. This can be done by dragging and dropping the entries to the bottom queue or by selecting an entry and selecting the add startup item to queue icon.

A dialog is displayed for each program that is added to the queue of the software program. This is where the actual configuration is taking place.

The software has the following options for each startup item:

• Delay the startup by x hours, x minutes and x seconds.
• Change the initial window state from normal to hidden, minimized or maximized
• Change the default process priority from normal to idle, high or real time
• Make all Windows startup items that are further down in the queue wait until the application is fully active before loading the next queue app.
• Pause the loading of startup items until the program has (been) closed

Start-Q needs to be activated once the queue has been filed with startup programs. The user has the option to let the software launch with a gui or silently in the background.

Activating Start-Q initiates the following process: All startup programs that have been moved to the program’s queue are removed from their initial startup locations in the Windows operating system since they are now launched by Start-Q instead. Start-Q will be added to the list of programs that are started during Windows startup.

The software to optimize Windows startup programs can be downloaded at the developer’s homepage where it is available free of charge. It worked without problems on our Windows 7 test system.

Some users might want to skip loading these autostart programs from time to time to save some time to be able to work on the computer. The following solution works only when running Windows XP operating systems. Microsoft seems to have disabled the option in Windows Vista (and most likely kept it that way in Windows 7).

To start Windows XP without any startup programs press the [Shift] key while the computer system is booting. The key has to be pressed as soon as the Windows desktop background appears. This will prevent startup programs from being loaded automatically. It might take a few tries to get it to work.

In modern GNOME desktops (I am using 2.24.3) setting up autostart applications is much easier than it once was. In early releases you would have had to write a script to tell GNOME to launch a specific app once the desktop was loaded. Now, like nearly every aspect of the Linux desktop experience, there is “an app for that”.

To create an autostart application you need to visit the System menu in the top panel of the GNOME desktop. In that menu you will find the Preferences sub menu. Within the Preferences sub menu you will see the Personal menu which is where the Sessions tool. The Sessions tool is where you add applications for auto start.

GNOME Sessions Window

Once in the Sessions window (see the image to the left) you will want to click the Add button. When the new window opens for adding the application you won’t find a list of applications to choose from…you actually have to fill out the necessary information manually. What you have to fill out is simple:

Name: This doesn’t effect the actual startup of the application, but it does help you locate your new application in the long list of startup applications.

Command: This is the actual command the new application uses to execute. The application should be in your PATH, if not use the full path to the executable (i.e. /usr/bin/firefox instead of just firefox).

Comment: This will be the descriptive text underneath the name of the startup program.

Startup Application

As you can see (in the image to the right) the configuration is quite simple. Once you have your application configured, click the Save button and your start up application is ready to start up the next time you log in.

Faster Route

If you do not want to take the time to create a new start up application entry or you’re not sure what the commands are for the applications you want to auto start, there is an easier way.

If you click on the Options tab from the Sessions window you will notice a button labeled “Remember Currently Running Application”. What this allows you to do is to open up the application you want to autostart and click this button. When you do this an entry for that application will be automatically created in the Sessions window.

WARNING: There is a bug haunting GNOME >= 2.24.1 that doesn’t allow the “Remember Currently Running Applications” feature to work. If you are working within a GNOME earlier than 2.24.1 you shouldn’t have any problem. Anything later than 2.24.1 this will not work. The GNOME development team is aware of the problem and is working to fix it.

Final Thougths

If you are like me there are certain applications that might as well start up as soon as the desktop is loaded. And fortunately the Linux desktop allows for such features.

Autostart Explorer is a free portable software for the Microsoft Windows operating system that lists the programs and files that are started during Windows startup. The main advantage of this software program over more complex solutions like Autoruns is its simplicity. It does list all the relevant Windows startup entries divided into categories like Registry, startup folders or standard executables.

The program will list a short description of the currently selected Windows startup entry and the programs that are started during Windows startup. One major shortcoming is that the program does not provide the means to delete entries right away. The user has to either click on the Open Folder button to open the folder containing the program that gets autostarted or open a Registry editor manually.

While this could be meant as another means of protection to avoid accidentally deleting important startup entries it is a major nuisance for users who want to get rid of some of the autostart entries of their Windows operating system.

Another program that provides the means to delete entries is Starter. It is not as complex as Autoruns but provides more information and possibilities as Autostart Explorer. Probably the best program of its kind for inexperienced users.

Delayed Exec is a free software program to delay the execution of startup programs. It displays all applications that are started during system start including their title, command and the user.

Applications can be moved into the delayed startup applications table where they will be executed in order using the delay interval specified by the user. The delay interval is set in milliseconds, the default being 15000.

The startup software is compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5. An alternative to Delayed Exec is Startup Delayer which does not require the Microsoft .net Framework.

Capster could be your salvation. It’s a tiny application with a size of only five Kilobyte that creates shortcut links to applications or a batch file that you select in the main interface. The user can choose to automatically start the application if the Caps Lock key is on or off which does make a difference.

The Caps Lock key on my computer for instance is turned off by default and I had to press the key during startup (after the Windows Logo) to autostart the application that I had selected.

The Create Shortcut button creates the link which has to be added to the Windows Autostart folder.

The Startup Control Panel scans five different locations for programs that are auto started from there. It checks several locations in the registry and the usual autostart folders in Windows. You will have to take a look at all registry entries and folders to make sure you do not miss a program. Most programs are usually listed in HKEY_Local_Machine folder and both Startup folders.

To disable a program from being auto started simply uncheck the program. Make sure you know what the program does before you uncheck it. Normally Windows does not need any programs started from these locations to be working correctly. It might however cause problems for third party softwares which probably won’t start anymore or show odd behavior.

The benefit of reducing the number of programs during Windows start is of course that the start itself will be faster. The system will also use less resources if you do not start programs that you might not need during the session. Does not make sense to load Office indexing for instance if you do not open Office at all.

I can use the tool to start true crypt automatically when I insert my hard drive that has been encrypted by it, could start iTunes when I add my iPod and start a background virus scan if I, or someone else, connects a usb drive that is not known. Please note that the user who is adding the usb device has full control over the system which means that he could abort everything that you autostart. (like a virus scan)

The tool uses the following syntax which has to be added to a .bat file which has to be autostarted with windows.

USBVirusScan cmd /k %d:

A real example would look like the following. Say you do want to start the file antivirus.exe on drive c:\ whenever a usb device is connected. You would create a new bat file which is basically a text file with the .bat extension. Create the file test.bat in the same folder that usb virus scan resides. Add the following line to it.

USBVirusScan “c:\antivirus.exe” %d:

It is possible to add additional parameters. -c hides the command window, -i hides the tray icon, -e disables the exit menu.

I was not able to figure out how to create autostart entries that would use the volume name or volume serial number so I asked Didier the author of the software directly. The following paragraph is his answer to the question, thanks for being so quick to answer it Didier.

On my laptop, I have this entry in the Startup menu: “D:\Program Files\USBVirusScan\USBVirusScan.exe” wscript “D:\Program Files\USBVirusScan\tasks.vbs” %d %s ‘%v’ tasks.vbs will start TrueCrypt when I insert a USB-key with serial number “318606D2″ to automatically mount the TrueCrypt volume on the USB-key. If it’s my MP3 player that is inserted (volume name PackardBell), 2xEplorer is launched. And in any other case, a virusscan is executed. tasks.vbs:

dim WshShell

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)

‘wscript.echo Wscript.Arguments.Item(2)

if Wscript.Arguments.Item(1) = “318606D2″ then WshShell.run “”"D:\Program Files\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe”" /v ” & Wscript.Arguments.Item(0) & “:\d1.tc /lz /q”, 1, true

elseif Wscript.Arguments.Item(2) = “‘PackardBell’” then

WshShell.run “”"D:\Program Files\2xExplorer\2xExplorer.exe”" D:\MyDirsD\Temp\PodcastQueue ” & Wscript.Arguments.Item(0) & “:\”, 1,

true

else

WshShell.run “”"D:\Program Files\Network Associates\VirusScan\csscan.exe”" /target ” & Wscript.Arguments.Item(0) & “: /secure /quiet /log “”D:\Program Files\USBVirusScan\log.txt”"”, 1, true

end if

You would have to edit the path and serial volume number to make the script usable but I think it demonstrates the usage nicely.