gHacks technology news » startup control panel http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:43:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Control which Programs start for Beginners http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/03/control-which-programs-start-for-beginners/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/03/control-which-programs-start-for-beginners/#comments Thu, 03 May 2007 11:36:13 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/03/control-which-programs-start-for-beginners/ The best software to control every program that is loaded automatically when Windows starts is Autoruns by Sysinternals. While this is an excellent software it requires some knowledge to use it the way it was meant to be used. A similar free software that is way better suited for novice computer users is the program Startup Control Panel by Mike Lin. It looks like a crippled version of Autoruns and concentrates on the most used locations where programs are added to be started with Windows.

control programs at startup

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.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/03/control-which-programs-start-for-beginners/feed/ 2 Startup Control Panel and Startup Monitor http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/11/startup-control-panel-and-startup-monitor/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/11/startup-control-panel-and-startup-monitor/#comments Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:13:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/11/startup-control-panel-and-startup-monitor/ Startup Control Panel and Startup Monitor are actually two programs not just one. The first, Startup Control Panel, is a 59K freeware that scans various paths and registry entries for programs that are run at startup. This is great if you need a quick basic overview, if you need an in depth overview try autoruns from sysinternals. Startup Control Panel lists three registry entries and two paths, those are the locations where most programs are autostarted.

You are free to disable, edit, rename and create new entries to the various autostart lists. As I said, if you need a quick overview this might be worth a look. Simply download, unpack and run it from that location. No installation is needed at all. Startup Monitor is running as an background task monitoring the various autostart locations and reporting changes to it.

This means that it will create a popup information as soon as a program tries to create an entry in those autostart locations. The name of the software and its location are displayed in the popup and you have the option to allow or disallow this entry to be written. The installation is as easy as that of Startup Control Monitor: Download, unpack, run, that´s all there is to do.

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