Some programs ask you if you want to start every time when Windows starts while others do not ask but still add an entry to an autostart location. This is most of the time not that useful unless you do use the software a lot. I can only think of security products that would fall into that category. Makes no sense to always start the antivirus software after Windows has loaded.
We all know that we can prevent autostarts by using the msconfig utility which ships with every Microsoft operating system. The problem that arises here is that although the programs are not autostarted anymore they still exist in the list which looks rather messy because it is growing over time. It does not make much sense to keep them in the list if you disabled them from the list.
