by Artemis

Created on: July 28, 2010

There are a number of factors that cause a slow start-up for a computer. One of those is start-up programs. A clean computer, with only Windows installed and no other application in, Windows starts fast. Once you have applications installed in, if the applications put a module to be loaded during computer start-up, that will spell S-L-O-W.

Common list of programs loaded during start-up includes: anti virus protection, updater and instant messengers. Imagine you have 10 applications putting updater modules to be loaded during computer start-up, and those modules keep on checking on the Internet if they have new versions of their software available, plus several anti virus protections scanning each and every launched applications for possible virus infections, how slow will the computer be?

A simple way to speed up the computer, if it's caused by a bunch of start-up programs, will be to remove those start-up programs (only the start-up modules of the software, not uninstalling the entire software). The question is: how?

1. Open up Start Menu, find Startup folder, look inside. All programs listed in the Statup folder of the Start Menu will automatically be launched every time the computer starts. You can simply delete the icons there to prevent the program launched during Windows start-up. If you need the application to be launched later, you can still find the icons in its respective folder in Start Menu. So, please note that this will only prevent the program from being automatically launched during start-up, but the program is still accessible and will usually run well when desired.

2. Some programs don't appear in Startup folder. It's usually anti virus protections and even instant messengers. Open Start Menu, click "Run" (in Windows XP), type "Regedit" and hit OK. If you use Windows Vista or Windows 7, Start Menu has a command line built-in at the lower part. Just type "Regedit" there and hit Enter. Regedit will be launched. Navigate to the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curren tVersion \Run” key in the registry. There, you'll find list of applications launched during Windows start-up. Be careful here, since some programs must really be run during start-up if you want the main application to be usable. Feel free to remove updater and instant messenger programs. For the others, be extra careful. You can back-up your registry by exporting (File|Export), just in case you delete the wrong entries. To restore your registry, you can use the command File|Import. Otherwise, some mistakes in registry are not recoverable, except by reinstalling a clean Windows from scratch.

Some third party applications like Tune-up Utilities comes with a feature to check loaded applications during start-up, and you can work there as you would do in Windows Regedit, only simpler.

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