Controlling startup programs

[Acadia]

I'm familiar with the couple of good, free programs available at mlin.net that control startup. Are there any other programs that ya'll can recommend? Thank you.

Acadia

[FanJ]

Hi Acadia,

Not quite sure what you're looking for, but maybe programs like ProcessGuard or RegRun or WinTasks Pro are what you're looking for?

[Acadia]

Thanks, FanJ, I should have elaborated a bit more. No, I'm not thinking security, I'm just looking for a way to controll the many harmless but useless thingies that normally load when XP loads, plus other annoying but harmless programs that came pre-installed on my pc.

Acadia

[crofttk]

Acadia, I use WinPatrol myself. http://www.winpatrol.com/ It's free although you can pay to get extra capability for providing information about startup items you can't identify. You can simply "disable" certain startup items if you don't want them running and re-enable them later if you change your mind. You can, alternatively, remove the items. However, simply disabling is a way to prevent the stubborn variety of startup items from coming back as some do. Also, the program alerts you and gets your approval or denial when items try to add themselves to your startup list.

It also alerts you to other things like changes to your hosts file, changes to file associations, etc. and it has a cookie eater too.

I'm sure others have their own favorites.

[Brinn]

I just go to the admin tools to turn off native xp services and use RegSeeker for the rest.

[Peter2150]

Hi Acadia

How about just turning them off with msconfig.

Pete

[justpassing]

Codestuff Starter (http://codestuff.cjb.net/)

or

sysinternal autoruns (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/autoruns.html)

[starfish_001]

REgrun or mlin.net control startup.

[hadi]

ccleaner and ewido both can control startup (Beware NO backup)
for ccleaner: open ccleaner>tools>startup
for ewido: open ewido>analysis>startup

[JRosenfeld]

Spybot S&D in advanced mode, tools, system startup is easy to use. When you uncheck an item from startup, it does not delete it, but moves it (if it is a registry startup) fromj the Run key to the Run- key, making it easy to restore the item should you wish to ain the future (of course it also has an option to delete an item).

[metoo]

-{ Quote: "Hi Acadia

How about just turning them off with msconfig.

Pete" }-

I like WinPatrol too but msconfig works just fine for me. Most of the time I don't use or need anything else other than msconfig/startup tab. I only use other programs if we're talking about malware that refuses to be removed from startup easily.

[Ailric]

I think this is what your are looking for:
Starter
http://members.lycos.co.uk/codestuff/

[Ailric]

Read more:

52 Best Free Startup Manager
Everyone needs a startup program utility so they can exercise control over what third party programs start automatically with Windows. There are several fine choices: The first is Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel [1]. It’s small, and easy to use yet has powerful features including the ability to edit or add entries. A second and equally good choice is Nir Sofer's StartupRun [2]. Unlike Startup Control Panel it lists all startup programs in a single list rather than in tabs according to location. It also has a lot more information on each program and has extensive editing features as well which means that it's definitely not for Newbies. Then there's Starter [3]. It combines many of the strengths of the other products and additionally includes a first rate process viewer. As a bonus, it can be run directly from the executable without installation which makes it a handy item to have on your toolkit CD or flash drive. Folks you are truly spoiled by choice here, each one of these products is a winner. NOTE: It appears Starter has become so popular that the author's website has exceeded its download limit so I've given an alternative [4] download link.
[1] http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml (59KB)
[2] http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/strun.html (68KB)
[3] http://codestuff.netfirms.com/products_starter.html (466KB)
[4] http://www.snapfiles.com/get/starter.html (468KB) <= Alternate Starter download site

[Longboard]

this may be helpful:
Black Vipers list preserved on Major geeks
Good for all the services

you probably already know this........

http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12

regards