Microsoft Windows includes a useful, but often annoying features that allows programs to be automatically started at boot. Technically, this is done by inserting special entries in the windows registry for:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
- ... or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
(wow, that registry key name sure is a mouthful to remember....)
Anyhow, without a startup program manager, your only way to edit these settings is by going into the registry editor (regedit) and typing in that whopping big key name, and then starting to poke around until you fix the problem.
Scott's Windows Startup Program Manager is a quick little freeware tool designed to save you all of that grief. Rather than fool around with registry settings, this program presents it all to you with a nice GUI interface. You can easily add, remove, or edit startup program entries.
Motivation:
So why do you need to mess with startup registry entries in the first place? The problem is lots of windows programs abuse these features. The worst culprits are malicious adware and spyware attack programs that relentlessly load themselves on startup. Even fairly benign software that you install, such as drivers or application programs may add little nuisance programs to the startup that you have to get rid of.
