Get rid of unnecessary system startups
Every software that is starting during system startup is delaying the system boot process. You might not notice an increase if the software is small but there are applications like those from Norton for instance that can delay it by more than a minute. It is therefor always a good idea to check which softwares are starting during Windows startup and get rid of any that are not necessary.
Starter is a sweat little application that was designed with usability in mind. It displays all softwares that are started during system startup displaying the information in a very convenient way. The left sidebar displays the possible locations and applications that are started from there while the right main window is displaying details about all softwares found in there.
The main window displays information about the location of the application, startup parameters and from where it is started. Right-clicking an entry displays a context menu with options to disable or delete it, perform a search on the Internet, launch it and to explore the file folder or registry.
The main question is of course which softwares can be securely removed from system startup. This is not that easy to answer. A rule of thumb would be to keep all security related entries, all entries that deal with hardware and get rid of the rest unless you use the software regularly and recognize a positive effect if it is started during system startup.
Starter lists all running processes in another tab offering better information than the Windows task manager. It displays for instance the path of the executable of the process, the priority, the memory usage and modules that are used by the process.
The third tab displays all Windows services sortable by many means. Started services use a green icon and a Running text next to them which improves usability here as well. Users can again use the right-click menu to stop and start services and set their status to automatic, manual or disabled.
The Internet search offers some unexpected features as well. The user has the choice to query several search engines instead of simply querying Google with the name of the service.
Read More:
Starter
via Freeware Genius
I like a program called:
“Startup Opimizer” way better (it is freeware as well).
Codestuff Starter XP FTW, much better than msconfig.
I remembered having read an article here on GHacks.net about CodeStuff’s ‘Starter’, so am just popping in to let you know CodeStuff Starter version 5.6.2.9 is available (since May 17th 2009 in fact).
* Enhanced Windows Vista compatibility.
* Fixed too aggressive settings saving while swithing between main tabs (Startups, Processes, Services).
* System memory graph was limited to 2 GB. Fixed.
* Made large annoing tooltips for startup and service items to appear only at first column of the list.
* Psapi.dll-related changes.
* Updated supplied web links (Help\Useful links and context search menu items)
* Updated NSIS-based installer to the latest version.
* Other miscellaneous changes.
Translations update
* New: Japanese
* New: Serbian (Latin)
* Updated: Greek (Hellenic)
Available here : http://codestuff.tripod.com/
I just love this app, have been using it since always :)