Deleting programs from the startup process?

Question

My computer runs for 3 or 4 minutes when I first start it up. The startup menu loads and loads and loads. Does everything I have a shortcut button for load during startup? Do I use configsys to delete them from startup? Do they use RAM? Or does it make any difference at all?

I'm not referring to the shortcut buttons you get when you click the start button to pull up the menu list. I'm talking about the actual process of turning on the computer and programs load in the operating system.

Answer 1

click on - Start - Run
then type in
msconfig
click ok
once the System Configuration Utilities window pops up
look in the Startup tab
uncheck the items you don't want starting up

another way to stop programs (such as yahoo messenger - or any other messenger, imaging programs, music download programs, etc.) from startup

open the program and go into the Options, Preferences or Properties section
and look around in each section for something along the line of - run on / automatically start up
then uncheck them and click the apply button

Answer 2

At the command prompt (looks like a dos prompt) type msconfig.

From there you can tweak several settings, you can see what is loading on startup and prevent those programs from loading.

It is a good place to start.

Good Luck

Answer 3

Use this with ****CAUTION****

The best way is to use MSCONFIG.EXE, but you might turn off an important program or service.

A better place to check is the "Start Up" folder, some programs hide little start up procedures in there that are generally safer to delete, or move to another folder