It does not really make sense to keep unused network adapters enabled because of this. Most users therefor may want to consider deactivating all unused adapters in Windows to speed up the start of the operating system.

This can be done in the Windows Control Panel. Click the start button and there on Control Panel to open it. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users open Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings for this. Windows XP users click on Network and Internet Connections > Network Connections instead.

Here you see a list of all network connections currently setup on the PC.

Please note that you not only see all network adapters listed in the menu but also network connections like virtual private network connections configured on the Windows PC.

You can disable any network adapter right here. Right-click the network adapter that you want to disable and select disable from the context menu.

You should be able to identify the adapter based on its name. If you have made an error, for instance by disabling your primary network adapter used to establish an Internet connection, you can right-click again and select enable from the options to re-enable it.

Repeat the steps for every network adapter that you are not using (regularly) on your system. It may be a good idea to restart the system afterwards to see if you notice any speed improvements during system start. You may also want to run a software to record the boot time. We have reviewed our fair share in the past, you can use programs like Boot Racer, Soluto or the Windows Event Manager.

The theory behind Startup Delayer is simple. Delay the auto start of programs in Windows to avoid bottlenecks during the start of the system.

Most versions of the Windows operating system offer no program loading priorities during startup. Microsoft has changed that behavior for services under Windows 7 and Vista, which can be configured to start delayed.

Programs on the other hand that are added to the startup locations of the operating system cannot be configured for delayed startup.

That’s where the third party application Startup Delayer comes into play. It offers to switch programs from normal startup to a delayed startup.

All programs are listed under normal startup by default, but can be moved to the delayed or disabled groups instead. Programs in the disabled group are not started at all, while delayed programs are started when the system meets specific requirements. The default requirement is a 90% idle disk activity. This can be changed to a cpu idle threshold or a manual delay directly in the main application window.

Delayed programs are displayed in order and you may need to use drag and drop to bring the programs in the right start-up order.

You can switch between user accounts at the top, handy if you need to change autostart items for other users as well.

Individual program properties are opened with a double-click on a program in the startup list.

Startup Delayer displays many information about the selected program which may aid you in identifying programs. The delay, wait and advanced tabs offer additional configuration options.

You can switch between automatic and manual delay under the delay tab. Those are basically the same options as in the main application window, with the difference that the pulldown menus under Manual Delay are now listed as hours, minutes and seconds (which they are not in the main interface which can leave users wondering what the numbers stand for).

The wait tab allows you to configure if startup delayer should wait for a specific event before the next application in order will be launched. The program can wait until the delayed startup program has terminated or until a user confirmation.

The advanced tab finally offers controls to change the window state and program priority plus options to launch the program only on specific days of the week.

The free version of Startup Delayer offers two additional features. You can access all running tasks and system services in tabs in the program interface. You can use the information to find out if all of your startup programs are running on the system. A handy feature is the ability to search for a specific process or service on the Internet.

How effective is it to delay the startup of applications? That depends largely on the computer system and the number of applications in the various autostart folders.

Users benefit the most if they have lots of applications in their autorun folders. Even more so if the computer is not the fastest. You may not benefit at all from delayed startups if you have only one or two programs in your autorun folder. It may even slow down their start up a little bit considering that Startup Delayer is added to the system start as well.

The interface language can be changed in the program options, but the quality of the translations is bad as machine translation was used by the developer.

You can download Startup Delayer from the developer website.

This toplist lists the best startup managers for Windows in the categories experts and best allrounder to ensure that users of all experience levels and expectations find the best suitable application. Additional applications are listed at the end.

Expert startup manager

When it comes to a professional startup manager for Windows Autoruns is usually the application used and recommended. The application has been developed by Sysinternals which are now part of Microsoft.

The application is a complete startup manager for Windows that offers in depth information not only about the usual startup locations in the Windows Registry and various startup folders but also about other files, programs and services that get started during Windows launch. This includes for instance the scheduled tasks, Internet Explorer Browser Helper Objects and toolbars, Services or network providers.

The program offers to hide Microsoft items from the lists and can analyze offline systems as well.

Autoruns is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems. Downloads are provided at the program homepage.

Runner up

Starter is not as complete as Autoruns when it comes to startup items, and the developers do not want it to be. The biggest strength of Starter is that it displays all relevant startup items directly on launch.

The sidebar displays the locations that are scanned during startup. It is usually not necessary to switch around as all items are displayed in the main interface directly. It can however be helpful to remove specific items only.

Start displays processes and services as well with possibilities to end processes or change startup types of services. Starter is available as a portable application and installer at the developer homepage.

Runner Up

OSAM Startup Manager offers interesting features and comprehensive information about the system’s startup items. It is for instance possible to scan files with an online malware scanner with an option to submit it to the developers of the application if it is not in the database yet.

Autorun Manager is available as a portable version and installer at the developer website.

Runner Up

ESET SysInspector comes with an autostart manager and a lot more. One of the great aspects of it is that it assigns a risk level to known startup items, processes and other programs that are running.

ESET SysInspector is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit edition for the Windows operating system.

User Friendly startup manager

MSConfig is a first party Windows tool that ships with every version of the operating system. It can be launched directly by pressing Windows-R to bring up the run box, typing msconfig in the box and hitting enter. While it is not the most feature complete startup manager it can be used directly without having to download a software first.

Runner Up:

Startup Control is a tiny portable software that displays pretty much the same information as MSConfig, albeit in a slightly more complicated manner. Instead of displaying all startup items in one list, it divides them into locations which means that the user has to click on all entries to assess and manage all startup items.

The program is easy to use leaving little room for error. Downloads are provided at the developer website.

Helpful programs

What in Startup by Nirsoft
MSConfig Cleanup, remove old entries from MSConfig.
Disable Startup, block new startup items from being added to the operating system.

Which startup manager are you using?

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.

The PC needs to be rebooted after Soluto installation. This can be done right away or at a later time. Soluto will analyse all consecutive boots of the PC and record the boot times and applications in a history.

Boot applications are defined as required, potentially removable and no-brainer.

• Required: Core system processes that cannot be removed. This includes Windows Explorer, CSRSS, svchost processes and others.
• Potentially removable: These applications can be removed but it can also be that they are needed. Listed here are third party drivers and security software among others.
• No-Brainer: Are displayed in green. They can be removed from the boot process without problems. Listed here are the usual suspects like Google Update that offer no benefits to the user.

All programs are listed with their boot time and each section displays the number of applications and the combined boot time as well.

This alone would be pretty useful by itself but the fact that Soluto provides identification and suggestions makes it that more interesting and helpful.

A click on any application will reveal a description, information what other users did and options to pause or delay the start of the app.

The advanced link on each application profile will lead to additional information about the selected program. Soluto lists the number of users who have the software installed, a recommendation, the costs of having it run at boot time (percentage, seconds and disk load) and the application processes.

Soluto keeps track of the boot history since it runs on every Windows startup. Downloads have been activated again on the Soluto website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Advanced users might also find ways to tweak the core applications that are displayed in the required section as some are started by services of which some might not be needed. Read the Windows Services Optimizer SMART for a program that can automatically optimize the services.

Startup Selector is a free program for Windows that makes this process a little bit easier. It can save the current startup items or load a previously backed up startup profile. It can in this regard for instance be used to create startup profiles for specific usage scenarios on the computer system.

The software program displays a basic but easy to handle interface after installation and startup. The only option provided on first run is to backup the current profile which will become available on later runs in the restoration pulldown menu.

There is unfortunately no option to handle the configuration of different startup profiles right in Startup Selector which would make it a lot easier. The computer user needs to change the startup items manually, open the program again and save that profile as well. This has to be repeated for all different startup profiles the user wants to create.

A new profile that the user wants to load on the next system start needs to be picked manually in the program as well. There do not seem to be options to run the program with command line parameters or schedule specific profiles to be run on specific dates.

Startup Selector is a simple program that can still aid some users, especially when multiple users share a computer or when a computer is used for at least two different purposes. The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system and can be downloaded from the developer’s website. (via Shellcity)

Auto Mute is a small software program that can aid users who want to work with computer sounds and a silent startup.

The tiny program can mute sounds on logoff, suspend and shutdown so that the next system startup is quite. It can be integrated into the autostart of the PC so that it gets executed every time the user logs off, suspends or shuts down the PC. It can also mute sounds when the screensaver appears and provides a handy keyboard shortcut to turn sounds on and off while working with the PC.

The standard shortcut to do that is CTRL F10. Auto Mute is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that is available for download at the developer’s website. It is compatible with most Windows operating systems including 64-bit editions.

Update: Auto Mute 4.0 has been released recently. The new version adds several new features to the software program. Most notably are an option to hide the software’s system tray icon, an automatic memory cleaner that frees up unused memory used by the software more frequently and Pingnotify statistics support for events- PingNotify is a third party software that links desktop applications with a Google Analytics account.

The new version of auto Mute is still portable and compatible with all recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

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.

Removing entries from the list of programs that get started during system start will prevent them to be loaded after the next reboot. Inexperienced users should be very cautious on the other hand as the program displays important files that are needed to run the operating system properly.

The update to Autoruns 9.5 added a new tab to the startup manager. Autoruns now displays multimedia codecs “which are gaining popularity as an extension mechanism used by malware gains automatic execution.”

A click on the Codecs tab in Autoruns displays now system codecs as well. It is probably a good idea to hide Microsoft and Windows codecs from the list to make it more accessible.

Autoruns can be downloaded from the Windows Sysinternals homepage. It is compatible with client and server operating systems starting with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Boot Timer is currently only compatible to Windows NT, Windows XP and Windows XP 64-bit editions but the author promises to make it compatible to Windows Vista in future updates. To use Boot Timer simply double-click the executable and the application will automatically display a popup after the next computer restart that displays the boot time of the system.

This is a great utility for users who want to optimize their boot time.There are several possibilities to reduce the boot time of a PC. I do not want to get into all of them but here are a few tips on how to reduce the boot time:

• Remove Fonts that are not needed anymore
• Remove Startup Programs that start with Windows
• Change Bios settings
• Compress the Windows Registry

Got any more tips, let me hear them !

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.