JAYanthem blog

Is it taking longer and longer for Windows to load up or are too many programs running in your task tray? You may want to take a look at what is in your RUN key of the HKLM registry hive. Of course unless you are an expert I don’t recommend doing that, but this is something you can do:

Step 1: Windows Startup Folder
First ensure that no programs you don’t want are loading because they are in the Startup folder. You can check this by simply clicking the Start button, then All Programs, and you should see a Startup folder. Look at the programs in this, if there are any you recognize but don’t want to load then remove it by right-clicking on it and choosing Delete. (I would recommend right-clicking and doing a Copy and then pasting that shortcut to another directory before deleting first)

Danger Factor: It is extremely unlikely that any system required shortcuts would be in this folder, so it is pretty safe

Step 2: MSCONFIG
Utilize your Microsoft System Config Utility (msconfig) to clean out your startup registry key without actually having to go into the registry. Do this by clicking Start button, click on Run, and type in: “msconfig” and press enter. Click on the Startup tab on top, this tab will show all the programs that load each time you start Windows, whether you notice them or not. Look here for programs that you recognize and are sure they are not important to the system running- if there are ones you no longer want to load on startup you can disable them by removing the check mark. Well known examples would be RealPlayer, iTunesHelper, AdobeReader, etc. Remember you are not removing the program, you are simply preventing it from starting up when Windows loads

Danger Factor: You can cause some issues by removing programs that Windows requires, also you could remove programs from startup that you shouldn’t like Anti-Virus so be careful and only remove programs you know.