Everyone who uses a computer understands that the more programs you have running on your computer at the same time, the more chance that your computer will either run slowly or even crash. The thing that the average computer user doesn’t know is that every time you boot your computer a lot of your installed programs will start and run in the background, meaning you wont know they are running unless you know where to look. A few of these programs running in the background are needed, but the majority of them really should not be running. Knowing where to look and what to look for can help you significantly increase your computer’s performance and reliability by turning off those programs.

   Microsoft wrote a program into windows called “MSCONFIG” (Microsoft System Configuration Utility)which is designed to help you troubleshoot computer problems but it can also be used to turn startup programs off to get your computer booting faster, running faster and having less issues overall.

To do this you need to do the following(I’m using Windows XP in my example, however the concept is the same in Windows Vista):

1) Go to Start – Run 
  

2. In the run box type MSCONFIG then click on the OK button.

3. A window labeled System Configuration Utility will open. Look for the tab that says Startup and click on it. (*DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE OTHER SETTINGS ON THE OTHER TABS UNLESS YOU ARE SURE OF WHAT YOUR DOING.)

4. You should now see the programs scheduled to start every time you turn on your computer (long list isn’t it, this is why it takes some of you 5 minutes or more to start your computer). 

This window shows the name of the “Startup Item” and the windows location of the item under “Command” plus the registry change (The registry will be addressed in a different post, but for you that don’t understand what a registry is, image that it as a lot of little pieces that when together make up a brain). Any item with a check next to it will start every time you turn on the computer.

In my list (which is from my own PC) I have

WindowsLiveSync – Which i use to access files on my pc when I’m not at home. (I choose to have it run automatically)

IDrivestartup and IDrive tray – Which are part of my online back up software (I want to run automatically so that I don’t have to worry about)

VPN Client – Which I use to connect to my office (I chose to have this run automatically)

MultiRes – Which controls the 2 monitors that I have connected to my pc (I need to have this to run to monitors at the same time)

There is also gamevance32 (Which runs when my son plays some of his online games), Grovemonitor (which is a feature of the Microsoft Office Groove program), Wcescomm (Which is used to sync your phone and your pc), dumprep (which creates a file if your pc crashes telling you technical details – that most people wont understand anyways), Yahoo Messenger (Instant Messenger), and PG2 (which is a filter for peer to peer sites – I do believe their are legit reasons for P2P but that also is for another post).  Of the items I just listed starting with gamevance32, none of them are required for my machine to run, and are only needed IF AND ONLY IF I choose to run the program associated with it.  What will happen by unchecking these is that you will tell windows that you do not want these programs running until I chose to start the program at which time these files will start, you are in no way uninstalling the program from here, just conserving the resources in your pc that can then be used for what you really want to do.

If your not sure what a specific item on your list does, you can check out the following site http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php (http://www NULL.sysinfo NULL.org/startuplist NULL.php) .

The site by Paul Collins (which is in my bookmarks and has helped me many a time, Thank you Paul if you see this) lists (as of April 29, 2009) 18659 different programs that can be found in the start menu (not that you will have all 18 thousand) ,what the program is for, and even if its a required program or not.

(*Remember, only uncheck the programs that you recognize and can verify don’t need to be running all the time. If your not sure, leave it running, while you find out what it is. I’m warning you now, as I don’t want to hear that your pc wont work because you did something, just use some common sense.)

5. Once you have unchecked anything that you find that you don’t need running from startup click the OK button.

6. You will see a message telling you that you must restart your computer before these changes will take effect. Click on “Yes” and your computer will automatically reboot. Click Exit without restarting if you have other things open that you need to close first before restarting.  (*In either case your changes will take affect on your next restart)

7. After you restart you will see the following message. When you see it click on the box on the left where it says “Don’t show this message or launch the system configuration utility when windows starts” to put a check in it, before clicking ok. (*If you don’t and just click ok you will see this message on start up every time until you do.)

8. That is all there is to it, your machine should now run faster and be more responsive as you have taken some unneeded weight off your pc.

-> If you discover that something you unchecked is needed or chose to run it automatically (Like having your instant messenger start when windows starts, just run MSCONFIG again and put a check back next to that item.