![]() In Windows XP, it’s common to run lower-level applications as a system level service. Deleting a key without completely understanding the effect can have disastrous consequences. Unless you want a process completely removed from your system, it’s extremely important to check the function of a registry key before deleting it just because it contains a reference to a process. It’s not uncommon for a process to have dozens of listings. One thing to keep in mind is that just because there is a reference to a process within the registry, it doesn’t mean that the registry is telling Windows to launch that process. ![]() You should be able to find the process within the registry. Now, enter the process name exactly as it’s shown in the task manager. Simply go to the top of the registry and then select the Find command from the Registry Editor’s Edit menu. If there is an undesirable process loading automatically, but you can’t find it in this location, you can always do a registry search. Normally, this will be empty, but if an application wants your computer to run a file one time on the next boot up, the file will be listed here.Īs you work through the registry, you should be able to match most of the running processes up with references within the registry. While you are in this part of the registry, you may also want to check the RunOnce registry key. You will just have to go through the list and see what belongs and what doesn’t. Some of these programs, such as your antivirus software, are desirable. This key contains all sorts of programs that are set to run at startup. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurentVersion\Run You can access most of the running processes by opening the Registry Editor, using the REGEDIT command, and navigating to: Use the Registry Editor and the following directions at your own risk.Īlmost all of the processes that don’t belong to Windows or to open applications are called from within the registry. TechRepublic does not and will not support problems that arise from editing your registry. Using the Windows Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems requiring the reinstallation of your operating system and possible loss of data. The following section involves editing your system registry. For example, the process SPOOLSV.EXE is the Windows print spooler. The other thing that you need to realize is that many of the running processes belong to Windows. You could also return to the Applications tab, right-click on an application and select the Go To Process command from the resulting shortcut menu. To see which processes are related to applications, you can close an application and see which processes disappear. First, some of the currently running processes are related to applications that may be open at the moment. Doing so will display a rather long list of the various processes that are currently running on your system.īefore you freak out over how much stuff is running on your system, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. If you really want to see what programs are running on your system, select the Processes tab. This list is deceptive, though, because it only shows applications that currently have a visible window open. The Applications tab will show you which applications are currently running on your system. If you press and then click the Task Manager button, you will see the Windows Task Manager. Keep in mind that this only deletes the Startup shortcut, not the application. You can easily remove a program from the Startup menu by right-clicking on it and selecting the Delete command from the resulting shortcut menu. ![]() When you do, you will see a menu containing the Startup items. ![]() You can access the Startup folder by clicking Start | All Programs (or Programs, depending on your Start menu style) | Startup. ![]() Perhaps the most obvious place to look for an application that automatically starts when Windows is launched is in the Startup folder. For the purposes of this Daily Feature, I will walk you through all of the possible startup locations within Windows XP. For example, there are startup locations that exist in Windows 98 and Windows Me that don’t exist in Windows XP. Further complicating the problem is that the startup locations are inconsistent among versions of Windows. There are many different places that a program can be called from during the Windows startup. Today, however, this simply isn’t the case. What to know before you dig into the startup areasīack in the days of DOS, if a program was automatically loading when a computer started up, there were only two places that the program could have been called from: the CONFIG.SYS file or the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. ![]()
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