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As time has passed, many of you have noticed that your PC has gradually become slower and slower starting up. We’ll try to help speed things up using the System Configuration Utility to remove unnecessary and unwanted startup items.

1. Click ‘start’ then ‘run’ to open the ‘Run’ dialog box and type ‘msconfig’ just like the example below. Click ‘OK’

2. You should be presented with a ‘System Configuration Window’. Click the ‘Startup’ tab. These are all the programs that start when you load Windows. The more there are, generally the longer it takes your system to start up. Drag the line between the words ‘Command’ and ‘Location’ to the right so you can see the complete command line. Look for the ‘.exe‘ file in the command line. Now just use your favorite search engine to find out details of what the program is that starts up when Windows loads and you can uncheck the ones that you deem are unnecessary. Alternatively, you can use sites such as ProcessLibrary.com (http://www.processlibrary.com/directory/) to look it up. You may find spyware here if your antivirus is not up to date but more than likely you’re going to find a lot of legitimate programs that install an auto update utility that checks online every time you turn on your system. The second most common one is a program that starts up in the background so when you do go to use it, it ‘starts up’ quicker.  Honestly, I find the majority of these unnecessary. Update the programs manually when you’re having an issue with it. Once done removing the checkmark from unnecessary startup items, click ‘OK’

* Note that some programs may automatically add themselves back to the startup. If they do, you’ll need to go into the program itself and find where to disable it from starting when Windows does.
** If disabling one of the items causes a program to cease functioning correctly, just place a checkmark back in for the startup item.

3. You will be presented with the following window. Click ‘Restart’ if you do not have anything important that needs to be saved. If you need to save something, click ‘ExitWithout Restart’, save any important information, and manually restart your system.

4. Once the system has restarted, you’ll be presented with the following dialog box. Place a check in ‘Don’t show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windowsstart’ and click ‘OK’.

You’re done. Hopefully on subsequent boots you’ll notice the system booting up much quicker.