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.

All of the useless items can be easily removed by using two methods:

Registry (Regedit)
Software MSConfig Cleanup

Using the Registry:

As usual, please backup your registry first.

Go to Start –> Run –> Regedit
Open Regedit and go to HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Sharedtools/MSconfig
Notice that there’s a ‘StartupFolder’ and ‘StartupReg’
Delete unused entries from those folders by comparing used and unused items through MSConfig.

Using MSConfig CleanUp:

The process of cleaning up old and unused startup items in msconfig is much easier with the free software MSConfig Cleanup. The software will automatically display all programs found and you can check all the programs in the list that you want to remove.