

Note that you'll need administrator privileges to make the change. To prevent a program from auto-starting, uncheck it. Select an entry to view information about it at the bottom of the Autoruns window. For a soup-to-nuts view of your PC's startup process, open the Autoruns utility choose the Logon tab to display only your startup programs. The default Autoruns view is the Everything tab choose the Logon tab to see only your PC's autostart programs. The utility displays all the programs, device drivers, codecs, and processes that run automatically when your system starts.
BEST PC STARTUP MANAGER INSTALL
For a complete snapshot of your system's startup, install Autoruns and launch it by pressing the Windows key (if you're on the desktop), typing "autoruns.exe," and pressing Enter. More importantly, Task Manager's startup list doesn't tell the whole story. Maybe this information will help you determine whether you need the program to auto-start, and maybe it won't. When you choose the search option or open the program's Properties dialog, you'll find more information about the app. You can also right-click the option and choose either "Open file location," "Search online," or "Properties." Right-click an entry in Task Manager's Startup list to view options for opening the program's file location, searching online, or opening its Properties dialog. To prevent one of your auto-start apps from running when Windows boots, select it and click the Disable button at the bottom of the window. Some entries may indicate that the program's startup impact is "not measured." If you don't see tabs at the top of the window, click "More details."Īs the screen at the top of this post shows, Task Manager lists each program's name, publisher, status, and startup impact in one of three categories: low, medium, and high. Choose the Startup tab to view a list of the programs that start automatically each time Windows boots. To open Task Manager, press the Windows key (if you're on the desktop), type "task manager" (without the quotes), and press Enter. Task Manager's startup options keep it simple
BEST PC STARTUP MANAGER FREE
(You'll find a great roundup of free Windows startup tools on Gizmo Richards' Tech Support Alert site.) After trying several other free startup utilities for Windows, I keep coming back to the original. Like many of the best free Windows add-ons, Autoruns has been around forever. If it's information you want about your startup apps, Autoruns will tell you everything you want to know and then some. In Task Manager it's not always easy to know which programs should auto-start and which don't need to.That's where utilities such as SysInternals' free Autoruns program come in. Unfortunately, the information and options available under Task Manager's Startup tab are meager the screen is shown at the top of this post. The startup-management tools built into Windows 8.1's Task Manager let you disable or remove programs that start automatically when the system boots. It doesn't take long for any PC's roster of auto-start apps to get out of hand. At the top of most Windows users' gripe list is having to wait so long for the OS to start. Immediately I started to think about all of the current version's shortcomings. As tempted as I was to answer "Windows 3.1" - I still miss Program Manager - I fessed up to preferring the current version 8.1 over any of its predecessors.
BEST PC STARTUP MANAGER WINDOWS 8.1
Not so.Īfter last week's post on essential Windows 8.1 time-saving tweaks, a reader asked me which version of Windows was my favorite. Still, you'd think that after all these years and so many versions, Windows would finally have all the tools users need right out of the box. Say what you will about Windows, you have to admit the OS has legs. Windows 8.1's Task Manager Startup tab lists your auto-start apps but provides precious little information about them.
