Identifying mystery startup items?

[bioboy]

Hi,

My son's PC is getting slow to boot up, so I ran Msconfig and visited pac's portal to identify and disable unnecessary startup items. However, there are 3 items which I can't identify as the "startup item" and "command line" columns are blank. The location of 2 of them is shown as HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run and the other is shown as HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run.

How can I identify what they are? I don't want to disable them if they are necessary, but I am suspicious as to what they are!

Thanks for any help.

 

[Jump1ng]

Have you used regedit to check these items in the registry?

Now if they don't show up as a proper command I would try and disable them with msconfig. If they break something you can alway re enable them.

Usually spyware and other nasties adds themself to the run part of the registry to make themself start when the pc starts.

I would recommend you to thorouglly check the pc for viruses and spyware.

Some good free tools are..
Spyware removal
SpyBOT
Adaware

Antivirus
Antivir

If these entries are nasties most likely they will reapear if you delete them or disable them.

Good luck!

---
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

 

[PalmTest]

Hi BioBoy,

Use the Startup Inspector to get an overview of all the items.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/startupinspector.html

The Consult button will tell you more about each item.

Good luck, and happy hunting.

 

[Jasen]

When I run across a startup program I'm not familiar with, I'll find out what .exe it's pointing at and google that name. You'll likely come across several pages that will at least give a clue as to what it is, if not outright tell you.

 

[bioboy]

Cheers guys. Well there's no command line, so no .exe they're pointing at. Went into the registry editor and no joy there either. Downloaded Startup Inspector and that didn't find anything either. Disabled the 3 items and everything still working fine. Strange......wonder if they are just remnants of programs that have been uninstalled or something like that?

 

[linney]

Removing a Program from Startup in xP
thread779-631159

 

[Jump1ng]

I have noticed that sometimes when you uninstall programs the startup string still get left in the RUN part of the registry.

If you want to really remove them use regedit and browse to the location and remove the strings that are blank.

But if you never worked with the registry before it might be better to just have them disabled as you could potentially wreck your os completly wreck windows doing the wrong thing in the registry.

---
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

 

[bioboy]

I found this program very useful for easily removing programs from the startup list altogether.

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

I now have only Norton Antivirus and ZoneAlarm Pro at startup, yet the PC still boots slowly even after cleaning and defragmenting the registry. I have tried all the usual stuff like scanning for viruses and spyware to no avail.

I have tried to defragment the drive it boots from, but at the end it says there are some files which couldn't be defragmented and give a report on them (mainly games programs). When I analyse the drive again it says it needs to be defragmented!

What actually happens on boot-up is that I get the windows splash screen and the desktop shortcuts quickly appear, but 2-3 minutes pass before I hear the hard drive get into gear and the startup items appear on the taskbar. Anymore ideas please?

 

[linney]

How does the machine perform in Safe Mode? Try your Defrag from Safe Mode too.

Norton Antivirus and ZoneAlarm Pro may be conflicting with each other, does ZoneAlarm have an anti virus component included within it?

FAQ779-4784 may help.

windows XP running very slow
thread779-796508