Startup folder

[Richard Fangnail]

My antivirus program starts automatically at bootup, but my Startup
folder is empty. How do they make it startup at bootup time if it's
not in that folder?

I believe it's happened with AVG and also Norton....

 

[Claymore]

Programs that load on startup are started from several locations,
mainly from the Registry. The Startup folder is actually one of the
least used. The simplest way to see which installed programs are
loaded at startup is to go to Start => Run and type in
"msconfig" {without the quotes}. Look under the Startup and Services
tabs.

If you want a complete listing of everything that runs at startup,
including full information on where each item is run from, and the
ability to disable an item, get this freeware:

Autoruns
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Autoruns.mspx

 

[Rock]

My antivirus program starts automatically at bootup, but my Startup
folder is empty. How do they make it startup at bootup time if it's
not in that folder?

I believe it's happened with AVG and also Norton....

There are a bunch of different ways programs can be started - the startup
folder is just one of them. In this case they start as as services and
through run keys in the registry.

 

[Greg T]

Registry entries. Start, Run-type msconfig. Check the tabs at the top of the
window you will see the different ways that a program can start with Windows
startup
Greg T

 

[Newbie Coder]

Richard,

These items are set to run via the RUN key in the registry. Here are the two
'main' keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Of course there are other keys which the are used to run mainly DLL's on
boot like the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify

The above key is alse checked by anti-spyware applications too

One of the other users pointed you to Autoruns by System Internals (obtained
by Microsoft). This is a fantastic program & gives you so much information
that it may look daunting, but if you look on the Logon & WinLogon tabs
you'll see your antivirus programs. However, the antivirus software also
have 'Services' which are set to automatically run too when the computer
starts

I hope this helps,

 

[Guest]

I have been all over the help stuff trying to figure something out. I have
an isp called Mobiletel. All I know about it is the shortcut on the desktop.
I cannot see how to find out what it really is. I would like it to run
automatically on startup, and then load explorer if that is possible.

DOS was so much easier!