Startup Cop

PC Tech

Take Charge of Windows Start-up
Introduction
Using Startup Cop
The Start-up Programs
Saving Profiles
The Restore Profile Tab
Startup Cop and Windows 98
Inside Startup Cop
Disabling and Removing Items
Reading and Writing Shortcuts
Simulating Context Help


	Startup Cop • Download • Demo

Take Charge of Windows Start-up
Startup Cop controls which programs Windows launches at start-up.

By Neil J. Rubenking

When Microsoft Windows starts up, before you've launched your first application, there are already quite a few programs running--as many as several dozen! Where do they all come from? You're probably familiar with the StartUp menu, which is under Programs in the Start menu. Any shortcut in the StartUp menu will be launched automatically when Windows starts. Windows also looks in six other locations for programs to be launched at start-up. In case a start-up program from anywhere on your system causes trouble, you can use Startup Cop to disable it temporarily. You can save a list of programs to be disabled or enabled as a "profile", and save these profiles as desktop shortcuts that can optionally restart Windows.

Startup Cop runs under Windows 95, 98, and NT 4.0. The Delphi 4 source code for Startup Cop is provided with the utility for those interested in seeing how it works.

Neil J. Rubenking, the author of Startup Cop, is a contributing technical editor of PC Magazine. Sheryl Canter is the editor of the Utilities column, and a contributing editor of PC Magazine.

Next: Using Startup Cop

Published in the 4/20/99 issue of PC Magazine.