Those annoying startup programs

Every day, you switch on your computer. You wish to check your email, or your Orkut scraps..The bootstrap clicks, and line of duty passes to Agent Microsoft Windows..You're greeted by the now-accustomed to endless waiting for the logon screen. You click on your photo..and twiddle your patience on your desk.

Internet explorer answers the call..You begin to call up Gmail..www.gm..
Right in the middle of your typing, you are interrupted by a program loading..Oh it's just your Norton Antivirus loading up in the system tray. Oh well, that's an essential evil which hogs up all your precious Ram..

You continue your typing 'mail.co'..No! Not again..this time, it's another rubbishy program..they keep popping up in the tray..and the rest of the time is spent by you, closing them down..Rt click, exit..once again..you do it countless times, and at last you are left alone..to peruse your email in peace.

Which one of us isn't troubled by these countless programs which breed in the habitat of the system tray..apparently once-useful utilities..but now a time-hog and irritant..How we wish we'd never installed the program in the first place..

Even common place programs like Rediffbol and YahooMessenger reside in this area and keep trying to login to their sites. If they can't, they keep shouting at you to connect your modem. If your PC has hordes of Ram,you just think they're an irritation. If not, you definitely feel the heat, by the slowing of your common place apps..Internet Explorer, Word..all of them seem slower to start up than when u first bought up your PC..You just blame it on the newer programs, and their system hungry nature..or an innate craving to follow the Moore’s law..

Though much of that is probably true, the main reason for your computer slowing down is due to the trash pile of apps that load up in the system tray (the rightmost corner of your taskbar). How many of you, when you install a program, read all the prompts that load up, and care to uncheck the option that says ‘Load program at windows startup’? Very few of us do..we mostly just keep clicking on ‘Next’, and wait for the installation to end. Some of the programs don’t even care to give such an option to disable it.

And once installed, these programs just load up in the system tray..Norton Antivirus (or any other antivirus), Windows (MSN) Messenger (see how playfully Microsoft treats the verdict of the infamous trial) etc…the list is endless.

Have you ever wondered how you could avoid this nonsense? For some programs like MSN messenger, it’s just a matter of right clicking on the program, and choosing Options..you’ll at last find an option which allows you to disable the program startup. Some programs like ‘Orkut messenger’ are more invasive. They don’t offer such an option. How do you get rid of such programs. Earlier I used Iolo’s System Mechanic to disable it. But the program is costly, though effective. Or you could use Msconfig from Microsoft. Just type msconfig in the Run box. But it isn’t effective against all programs.

Luckily I ran across something called Autoruns, from Sysinternals. It’s freeware and does the job quite effectively. On starting up this program, it gives a long list of all the programs which load up daily. You can easily uncheck these boxes, and rest assured that these programs never load up again. And in case you decide you can’t live without it, you can tick it back on, anytime..So next time when Rediffbol loads up, don’t vent your ire on the desk…Just load up the program and exile it to CyberHell…

Joel G Mathew.