Startup Applications

The Startup Applications tool displays applications and processes that start along with the system upon turning on the computer or when a new user logs in to the system.

When installing applications, they often get registered in the system so that they automatically start at every system startup. We’ll call this automatic launch or startup of an application. If the application is interesting to the user, its automatic launch can be useful. However, the more automatically launched applications that are registered in the system, the greater the time needed for the system to load because all those applications are launched simultaneously.

With the Startup Applications tool, you may boost the system load time by affecting the startup programs using the following techniques:

• Delaying the startup applications.If a program is registered as automatically launched, you can configure it to not launch immediately after system load, but after a specified time. This will reduce the workload on the system at the time immediately after first logging in, causing the system’s user interface to react to your actions with less delay.

  What startup applications are recommended for delay? Generally, these are applications that you do not need immediately after turning on the computer. For example, you could delay a utility for updating a certain program. Many developers love to add such programs to automatic launch.

• Temporarily disable or remove the startup applications.If you think that the program is not needed at startup, you can temporarily disable or permanently delete it. This is easy to do using the Startup Applications tool. If the program has been reactivated as a startup item, even though you disabled or deleted it, the Startup Applications tool will re-disable or remove it again.

In the Startup Applications tool window, a histogram shows the time of a few recent system loads. Note that this time is affected not only by the automatically launched applications, but many other processes (such as the background services, Windows updating system, etc.). Therefore, this indicator tends to vary at both the upper and the lower ends.