Applications at Windows startup

[Clippy]

What's the best way of finding out what applications are running when Windows boots up?

Is there a good third party app that can tell you and allow you to disable the ones you want?

Looking for recommendations.

[VectraMan]

Have you tried msconfig?

[TykeMerc]

Try msconfig (standard native command line app) that's actually pretty decent and a good start point.

Spybot S&D has an ok built in utility too.

[Clippy]

DOH!

Ta.

[Troll]

HijackThis is pretty useful

HTH

[Board Game Geek]

HijackThis is pretty useful

HTH

WHS +1

Also, try Ccleaner, which cleans the PC temp files and other garbage, cleans registry, and lets you enable/disable or delete startup tools.

It's good software and I've used it on hundreds of PC's now with no problems. Very useful.

[xoggoth]

Which windows? Vista has a startup manager built in, it's on the control panel. You can also stop/start/enabe/disable running services via services.exe in windows\system32. Also look at taskmanager.exe, that controls the things that are scheduled to run although they may not be running at the mo.

I just have a folder with shortcuts to all the most useful system stuff. Easier than fannying around trying to find them in the control panel or even (good grief!) using the cmd line.

[xoggoth]

I disabled all these services:

cyberlink rich video service
function discovery resource publication
infrared monitor service
tablet PC input service
terminal services
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Volume Shadow Copy Service
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Windows Modules Installer Service (Trusted Installer)
Superfetch
ReadyBoost
Windows Backup

Plus proprietary update stuff, Google, Adobe etc

Obviously some may need turning on again when you do a specific task.

[Clippy]

Which windows? Vista has a startup manager built in, it's on the control panel. You can also stop/start/enabe/disable running services via services.exe in windows\system32. Also look at taskmanager.exe, that controls the things that are scheduled to run although they may not be running at the mo.

I just have a folder with shortcuts to all the most useful system stuff. Easier than fannying around trying to find them in the control panel or even (good grief!) using the cmd line.

Top tip, thanks. Disabled a few more apps with this.

It is actually a feature of Windows Defender.

I disabled all these services:

cyberlink rich video service
function discovery resource publication
infrared monitor service
tablet PC input service
terminal services
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Volume Shadow Copy Service
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Windows Modules Installer Service (Trusted Installer)
Superfetch
ReadyBoost
Windows Backup

Plus proprietary update stuff, Google, Adobe etc

Obviously some may need turning on again when you do a specific task.

The CyberLink stuff was slowing down my laptop - almost a dozen applications running at startup!!

Also, another good utility is Autoruns - used to use it years ago.