Make I.T Easy - How to Disable Unwanted Start Up

Start up programs start automatically when you boot up your pc. They bog down your pc's performance by taking up memory and resourc es from legitimate processes. Although some are useful, most are at best unnecessary and at worst, useless parasites such as spyware/malware/viruses.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A fair understanding of Windows and the navigation of its utilities.

Step 1

To get a sense of how many start up programs you may have running on your pc, look in the bottom left side of your computer screen. Count the little icons that appear there. Depending on your version of Windows, you may have to click on the little "<" icon to expand the opening to show all the icons. Notice on the screen shot that I have 5 icons in my list, 4 of them are start ups.

Although this isn't the complete list of the start ups you have on your pc, it should give you a good idea of how many you may have. Most people should only have 5 or 6 icons in this list.
Step 2

Next let's start digging in a bit, click on the Windows Start button then click on Run and type in "msconfig" and click on "OK" as shown...
Step 3

When the msconfig utility comes up, click on the Startup tab, as shown...

Here you will see a list of start up programs that may or may not have had an icon as referenced in step 1. To stop a program from starting up on the next reboot, simply click on the box next to its name to remove the checkmark. Clicking it again will put the checkmark back in place.

This is the best place to experiment with stopping unwanted start up programs since you can simply return to this utility to re-instate a start up that you previously disabled.

99% of the unwanted startup programs can be removed using the msconfig utility. Only use the next steps if you must.
Step 4

Occasionally, especially in the case of virus/malware/spyware infestations, you will have to edit the Windows registry to remove the start up program(s). This should only be done as a last resort if you cannot get the program off using any other removal utilities. Sadly, the most determined parasite programs must be removed using this technique.

Before making changes to your registry, it's a very good idea to create a restore point (requires XP or above) on your pc in case something goes totally wrong and you need to get your pc back to its current state. You will normally find a link to the "system restore" utility by clicking on Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools folder.

After you create a restore point, proceed to the next step.
Step 5

Only proceed through this step if you're an advanced Windows user and are comfortable with advanced troubleshooting.

Click on the Windows Start button then click on Run and type in "regedit" and click on "OK"...

Maximize the Window once the utility opens. 99% of all remaining start up programs can be accessed by navigating to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SOFTWARE->MICROSOFT->WINDOWS->CURRENT VERSION->RUN

You get there by clicking on the "+" next to each level to expand its contents.

When you get there, it should look something like this (see screen shot).

You can delete any items on the right side of the screen if you believe they are an unwanted start up programs that cannot be removed any other way. Most users should only have a handful of items at most here. If your list is more than 3 or 4 items long, seriously look at each one and research where it came from.

You will have to reboot to see the changes take effect. If you remove an item and after rebooting find that it has magically returned then it is almost guaranteed to be a bad guy. Do some web searches on it to figure out the best way to get rid of such programs that keep putting themselves back in - thankfully such programs are rare.

If for some reason you remove something that must go back in, you can go back to the System Restore utility to restore back using the point created in the earlier step.

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