slow start up

[lel]

Hi,
Ive been looking on here for the answer to my problem as Im sure I have
seen it before,but cannot find it so though I would ask again.
My laptop is slow to log on, and Im wondering how to find out what
programs open at start up, and which ones I can safely stop opening at
start up.
Gratefull for any help and advice
Thanks
Lel

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi,
Ive been looking on here for the answer to my problem as Im sure I
have seen it before,but cannot find it so though I would ask again.
My laptop is slow to log on, and Im wondering how to find out what
programs open at start up, and which ones I can safely stop opening at
start up.

First of all, how slow is slow? How long does it take?

My personal view is that the attention many people pay to how long it takes
to boot is unwarranted. Assuming that the computer's speed is otherwise
satisfactory, it may not be worth worrying about. Most people start their
computers once a day or even less frequently. In the overall scheme of
things, even a few minutes to start up isn't very important. Personally I
power on my computer when I get up in the morning, then go get my coffee.
When I come back, it's done booting. I don't know how long it took to boot
and I don't care.

However if you do want to address it, it may be because of what programs
start automatically, and you may want to stop some of them from starting
that way. On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its
Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you actually
choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon" option). Many
can easily and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG
from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you
don't want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running
the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you
should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but
*which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no
effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is
determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost
in performance is of its running all the time. You can get more information
about these at http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it
there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.

 

[Guest]

I've asked several questions at these forums about stopping and/or starting
programs at start-up. I was warned not to go into MSConfig to stop programs
from starting because MSConfig basically checks to make sure those programs
are running properly.

The correct manner in which to start or stop programs from starting,
stopping, running manually or automatically is through Services. Right click
on My Computer, click on Manage, click on Services and Applications, click on
Services, and you'll see a long list of programs that are running in your
computer. Before you stop a program from running, right click on program
name, click on the Dependencies tab, and if the program has any dependencies,
you will stop those programs from running as well as the program you stop, so
you need to be careful. If it has no dependencies and you know that you
don't want the program to run, you can stop it. These options to start, stop
and restart are located in the upper left hand corner of the screen in blue
lettering and also in the General tab when you right click on a program name.

Hope this helps . . . Denise

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've asked several questions at these forums about stopping and/or
starting programs at start-up. I was warned not to go into MSConfig
to stop programs from starting because MSConfig basically checks to
make sure those programs are running properly.

Who warned you of that? That's not good advice. MSConfig is a perfectly good
way of stopping most autostarting programs. It will warn you next time you
boot that you have disabled the program; just reply telling it not to warn
you you again.

An occasional program will restart itself next time, even if you disabled it
with MSConfig, but that's uncommon.

Some people will tell you not to use MSConfig because it was meant to be
used only as a diagnostic tool. Although it's true that it was meant as a
diagnostic tool, there's no good reason not to use for a permanent change;
it works just fine for that purpose.

There are also several other freeware/shareware programs that do things
similar to what MSConfig does. They are often even better than MSConfig, but
are overkill for most users. Among these are Mike Lin's Startup Control
Panel, Peter Forrest's StartMan, and Startup Cop.

The correct manner in which to start or stop programs from starting,
stopping, running manually or automatically is through Services.

No, it's not. You can stop services from running that way, but not all
autostarting programs are services.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[Guest]

Since MSConfig is meant to be a diagnostic tool and Services is meant to
start and stop programs from running, I think the best course of action when
wanting to start or stop a program is the one that Windows provides through
Services. This is good advice. If a program is stopped in MSConfig, there's
no way to tell if a dependency is also stopped or if there is something wrong
with the program.

The message that pops up stating that a program has been disabled is
inconsequential. It doesn't state whether another program was stopped
because it was dependent upon the program that was stopped. Also, since the
program wasn't diagnosed by MSConfig, it doesn't state whether or not the
program is faulty.

BTW, when I disabled .Net Runtime Optimization Service in Services, my
computer starts up about 25% faster.

Denise