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How to get rid of startup programs (XP only, sorry)
By Martin English | September 7, 2006
I recently removed some programs from my home PC. however, the uninstall process didn’t work properly for some of them, and while the executable or DLLs have gone, there are still some references to them. This causes an error at startup. It’s just a windows dialog box that I click OPK to, but its a nuisance.
Programs and services that start whenever Windows boots do so in various ways. The simplest way to install programs and services that start whenever Windows boots is to create a shortcut to the program within the Startup folder for the current user (or for each user on the machine). To open your Startup folder, click Start, then Run, and type the following:
%userprofile%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
To open the Startup folder for all users, click Start, then Run, and type the following:
%allusersprofile%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
In addition, Registry keys are another common way to launch programs or services at startup. You can also use tools like your System Configuration Utility (click Start, then Run, type msconfig.exe, click OK, and select the Startup tab) or a third-party tool like Autoruns from Sysinternals. Once you’ve found all this junk though, how do you get rid of it?
Removing items from your Startup folder (or the common Startup folder) is generally safe, but deleting values from your Registry should be done only as a last resort. In fact, sometimes deleting a registry value won’t even work–as soon as you run the application associated with the startup program, the deleted registry value may get automatically re-created!
The best way to proceed is to first try to see if the application itself lets you remove the feature or component that’s starting up every time Windows boots. You might need to rerun your application’s Setup program to do this. If this fails, then (and only then) should you consider deleting a registry value (but always back up your registry before making any changes to it).
Finally, here a few more sources of information on the topic of startup programs:
- How to Remove Startup Programs
- How To Manage Windows Startup
- Configure Auto-Starting Applications
- How to Modify the List of Programs that Run When You Start Windows XP
- Restore Your Computer’s Performance with Windows XP
Topics: Code, Microsoft, Productivity, Technology | No Comments »
