Microsoft Weekly

Manage startup programs to troubleshoot problems

By Ed Bott

How many programs run automatically every time you start your PC or sign in to Windows? Very few installers warn you that they're about to add a helper program or an automatic updater that runs in the background.

Each of those auto-starting programs takes a toll on your available memory. Some background programs can conflict with other software, resulting in mysterious slowdowns or crashes. That's especially true of security software, disk utilities, and other low-level system tools.

One of your first troubleshooting steps when you're trying to figure out the cause of a performance or reliability problem is to eliminate startup programs as possible culprits. To see a partial list of auto-starting programs in Windows 10, open Task Manager in More Details view on the Startup tab. In Windows 7, the equivalent list is on the Startup tab in the System Configuration tool, Msconfig.exe.

Right-click any item and choose Disable to temporarily prevent it from running at the next startup. After your testing is complete, repeat those steps and choose Enable if you want to allow it to run again.

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