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Identifying the programs that Windows runs at boot

Intended For
Windows Vista
Windows XP
Windows 2003
Windows 2000
Windows Me
Windows 98
Windows 95
There are several places that programs are listed to be run automatically at boot. The most obvious is your Startup folder in your Start menu - by looking at the properties of the icons in your Startup folder, you should be able to easily figure out what each one does. To stop a program from loading at boot, simply remove it's icon from the Startup folder.


The less obvious places for these programs to hide include the following:

  • In your Registry, at the following locations:


HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ RunServices

Some of these may or may not be present, depending on your version of Windows

  • Listed in your WIN.INI file, under the LOAD= and RUN= lines (rarely used anymore) - Windows 95/98 only.


Many of the items in the registry can be difficult to identify, although some of them can be self explanatory. There are two parts to every listing (listed in the right pane) - the value name (in the left column) and the value data (in the right column). The name doesn't do anything, but can be descriptive - "SystemTray" operates the tray notification area (containing the clock and the volume control by default). The value data is what contains the filename of the program to run - in the case of the "SystemTray" listing, "SysTray.Exe" is run when it's encountered. Note that any application can place a program to run here - look at the description and the folder name for a clue. Some of the other common items that may be found include:

  • COMSMDEXE: 3Com networking component
  • HP JetDiscovery: HP network printing component
  • HPSCANMonitor: HP scanning component
  • LoadPowerProfile: Microsoft power management profile loader
  • ScanRegistry: Microsoft Registry Checker
  • StillImageMonitor: Microsoft component for scanners and cameras
  • SystemTray: Battery Meter for portable computers
  • TaskMonitor: Microsoft component for keeping Explorer from crashing (ha-ha)
  • Tweak UI: Portion of Microsoft Tweak UI that performs certain operations at boot, such as clearing the Run history.


Written by: Annoyances.org
Last updated: Wednesday, February 7, 2007

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