Optimizing Windows Startup Programs

When Windows starts, there are a number of programs and applications that load.

1. Some of these programs are used to support your hardware devices.

2. Some of these programs are used to provide support for software applications you have installed.

3. ...and unfortunately some of these programs are viruses or malware programs that have infected your computer.

You will want some of these programs to load when Windows starts. Others you may not. I use a freeware program called Startup Control Panel to manage my Windows startup programs. It has a quick and clean interface that allows you to control the programs starting when Windows loads. As with any application to manage the Windows startup process, you need to be careful. If you inadvertently disable an application that your computer needs, you can "break" a software application or hardware add-on. In most cases, it's a simple process of re-enabling the program to get things working normally. The Startup Control Panel is an easy way to do this.

When you load the Startup Control Panel, you are shown 5 tabs that represent the areas that Windows uses to load applications when it starts.

1. Startup (user) - This shows programs that will run only for the currently logged in user. The represents current user applications found in the START menu | Programs | Startup folder.
2. Startup (common) - This shows programs that will run for all users when they login. The represents applications available to all users found in the START menu | Programs | Startup folder.
3. HKCU/RUN - These are programs activated via the registry that will run when the current user is logging in. The complete registry path for these entries is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
   Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
4. HKLM/RUN - These are programs activated via the registry that will run when the computer is powered on or rebooted. The complete registry path for these entries is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\
   Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
5. RunOnce -This is another section of the Windows Registry that tells the computer to run a program one time. Never again. This is typically only used right after a software application is installed to initialize it's settings.
   
   Note on the Windows Registry: The Windows registry can be intimidating and dangerous. Making changes to the Windows registry can be detrimental to your computers health. The Windows registry basically contains everything needed to run your computer correctly. Do not carelessly modify your Windows registry (via RegEdit.exe or another user-unfriendly application). If you do not know what you are doing, you can easily turn your computer into an unrecoverable mess. Be sure to use a program like Startup Control Panel to modify any registry entries in a safe, simple, user friendly manner.
   

So what can you do with this information and what should you
disable?
Basically, the fewer applications loaded (in memory) on your computer, the faster it boots up, the faster it operates.

How can you figure out what's what and get rid of the crap?
The picture above shows that I have something called TkBellEXE loading in HKLM/Run (#4 above). The program it executes is called realsched.exe (see the Path column).

First, I determine what this program is by Google-ing the name of the application. In this case, "realsched.exe". Google finds me one of many of the sites that can answer my question. The answer is;

"realsched.exe is a program which schedules manual update checks for Real Networks products. This is a non-essential process. Disabling or enabling this is down to user preference however disabling may prevent notification of updates."

Cool. I have no need for automatic update for my Real Player (made by Real Networks), so I uncheck the box in the Startup Control Panel and I never load this program again.

Be sure to investigate any programs thoroughly (by Google-ing them) before disabling them. The nice thing about the Startup Control Panel is that if you goof something up, you can always run Startup Control Panel again and re-enable any program.

I highly recommend checking out the Startup Control Panel. It's a free, easy to use application for optimizing your computer startup processes. If you have any questions about the Startup Control Panel or any of the startup processes on your computer, feel free to drop me a line. I'll be happy to do my best to answer your question.