Platinum Edition Using® Microsoft® Windows® XP

Controlling Which Programs Start Automatically

In a perfect world, very few applications would start automatically when you boot your Windows XP system; some would argue that the only really important programs would be antivirus auto-protection and Windows Update. Unfortunately, many program developers assume that you want to use the software they create every time you turn on your computer. As a consequence, much of the software installed on the typical computer also adds itself to the system's startup process, even though there's little time savings and no real advantage to launching the program at startup instead of at your convenience.

Fortunately, we can control which applications and utilities are permitted to remain in the startup folder. ...