How to Stop Programs from Running at Windows XP Startup

If you just bought a new computer, it's most that your computer will start up quickly. Loading Windows XP, however, may take just a few seconds before reaching your desktop. This is often true because you usually do not have a clutter of programs installed or files stored in your hard drive yet. However, as time passes by, your computer may begin to start up a bit slower than usual until it becomes really noticeable.

One thing that you may consider in trying to speed up your operating system's loading time is to remove start up programs that you may not need. I usually choose among 4 ways on how to remove programs from the Windows XP start up. There are other ways such as deleting the program or file entirely, but these 4 are probably the safest to do.

One of the easiest ways to remove a program from start up is to literally remove them from start up. Click on the start button then go to all programs. From there, go to startup and the programs that you'll see here will automatically run when you start up windows. You can easily delete them by right-clicking on the program and hitting delete. If you want to view it like a folder, go to the following location:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Just make sure you choose the folder depending on who the user is. You can easily remove, and add, programs that you want to run on startup here.

The next step is more complicated than the simple highlight then delete. Click on the start menu then click run. On the dialog box, type in msconfig then hit ok or press enter. The System configuration utility windows should come up. Just click on the startup tab and you'll find the programs that will run as soon as your Windows starts. Just uncheck the programs you do not want to activate during startup and then you'll be given the option to restart your computer.

Things are getting more complicated now but no worries. This is still a bit safe to do. Services, in layman's terms, are programs that are loaded onto the memory for use of the Operating System. They are not actual programs that we use but rather processes that perform specific actions such as networking, hardware interaction and so on.

It's quite easy to access. Just go to Start then run and then type in services.msc. This should show you all the windows services you have on your PC. You'll see which among them starts automatically when your PC boots up. You'll see which are started or manually enabled. Removing a service will free the computer memory space it uses up and disabling it will make sure that it won't load during startup resulting in a faster, sometimes indistinguishable, loading of windows.

Just be careful. If you accidentally disable an important service, your operating system or a program or function that is dependent on that service may not work anymore. You can try re-enabling it though but some of the most important services, such as for networking purposes, cannot be disabled.

And lastly, thus the most complicated, you can go directly to the windows registry. Accessing it is easy. Just go to start, run and then type in regedit. This will open up the Windows registry. It contains a myriad of information about your operating system and its components and configurations. If you haven't done this before, I suggest you study first but if you know how to, then just remove an entry on the hkey_current_user all the way to the windows/run section. You'll see some of the programs that will run upon startup. Again, do this only if you know what you're doing. Thus, I just gave you the idea but not how to do it exactly.

Well, whichever method you want to use to remove a program from running when you open your PC, just make sure that you do not need them or that they are not necessary for your operating system's basic functions. If you are unsure about a certain item, try searching on the internet and see if it is safe to disable or remove especially in the services and the registry. Again, removing something may prevent your programs or even your computer from running properly so do this with caution.

Source:
Wikipedia - Windows Registry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry

Wikipedia - Windows Service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_service