Hi,

My PC boots up with my firewall software, antivirus software, network
connection, printer drivers, sound card drivers, etc. This is all good.
I'm wondering if I can set up new profiles on my PC, where a different
or limited set of applications get loaded up during boot.

I want to be able to log into my sytem as USER1 for browsing the web,
printing, etc. I want to set USER2 for multimedia development and I
don't want network traffic and firewall overhead interfering, but I do
want the drivers for my high-end audio card and video capture card. And
maybe USER3 could be for only games. Is there anyway to control what
loads during boot without having to create a dual boot setup? I'm
running windows 2000 and am thinking about installing XP.

~ Lori

"Lauren the Ravishing" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> My PC boots up with my firewall software, antivirus software, network
> connection, printer drivers, sound card drivers, etc. This is all good.
> I'm wondering if I can set up new profiles on my PC, where a different
> or limited set of applications get loaded up during boot.
>
> I want to be able to log into my sytem as USER1 for browsing the web,
> printing, etc. I want to set USER2 for multimedia development and I
> don't want network traffic and firewall overhead interfering, but I do
> want the drivers for my high-end audio card and video capture card. And
> maybe USER3 could be for only games. Is there anyway to control what
> loads during boot without having to create a dual boot setup? I'm
> running windows 2000 and am thinking about installing XP.
>
> ~ Lori
>

What you want to do can be achieved by interfering with the
normal startup process and placing various drivers and background
applications into a batch file that gets invoked at logon time.
However, it's a lot of bother and rather fragile. I do not think
it's worth your while - better leave it as it is.

For services and driver take a look at hardware profiles. For startup
applications take a look in these common places.

Natively you can; Start\Settings\Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Computer
Management(Local)\System Information\Software Environment\Startup
Programs|View|Advanced, then in the "Location" column, you'll find the path
to the "Startup" location either in the "Startup" directories or from the
registry's "Run" keys. (note that this window is read-only so you must
manually navigate to the location below to edit or otherwise delete)

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

or copy msconfig from Windows XP to the "windows" directory or AutoRuns from
sysinternals http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"Lauren the Ravishing" wrote:
| Hi,
|
| My PC boots up with my firewall software, antivirus software, network
| connection, printer drivers, sound card drivers, etc. This is all good.
| I'm wondering if I can set up new profiles on my PC, where a different
| or limited set of applications get loaded up during boot.
|
| I want to be able to log into my sytem as USER1 for browsing the web,
| printing, etc. I want to set USER2 for multimedia development and I
| don't want network traffic and firewall overhead interfering, but I do
| want the drivers for my high-end audio card and video capture card. And
| maybe USER3 could be for only games. Is there anyway to control what
| loads during boot without having to create a dual boot setup? I'm
| running windows 2000 and am thinking about installing XP.
|
| ~ Lori
|

Lauren the Ravishing wrote:

> My PC boots up with my firewall software, antivirus software, network
> connection, printer drivers, sound card drivers, etc. This is all good.
> I'm wondering if I can set up new profiles on my PC, where a different
> or limited set of applications get loaded up during boot.
>
> I want to be able to log into my sytem as USER1 for browsing the web,
> printing, etc. I want to set USER2 for multimedia development and I
> don't want network traffic and firewall overhead interfering, but I do
> want the drivers for my high-end audio card and video capture card. And
> maybe USER3 could be for only games. Is there anyway to control what
> loads during boot without having to create a dual boot setup? I'm
> running windows 2000 and am thinking about installing XP.

If you have the drive space, have you considered setting up multiple
boots of 2 or more Win2K and/or XP systems? This can give you a
dedicated OS custom-built for each of your main activities without some
of the problems that others have noted.