Control Programs That Run at Startup

The best way to prevent a program from running at Startup, is to check the program's own options for a way to prevent this. Most good quality programs will provide an option for this.

If you can't find the option there, click Start, Run and enter MSCONFIG. Go to the Startup tab, and uncheck the item there. This method is not always 100% successful. An example is a program that you do use, but you don't want running automatically. Some programs will check to see if the program's own options say it should run at Startup. If the program thinks its supposed to load at startup, it will re-create the autorun entry.




A small utility that can help you determine where things are loading from is Startup Programs Tracker, which can be downloaded here

Read more!

Editing the Registry for "other" Users

From an account with Administrator level access

1) Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT
2) In Regedit, highlight the HKEY_USERS key and go to File, Load Hive.
3) Use the File Open dialog to go to the Documents and Settings\ folder, where is the account you wish to modify.
4) Highlight the NTUSER.DAT file in this folder (usually a hidden file) and select Open.



5) You'll be prompted to enter a "Key name". You can use whatever you wish, but I use the User's logon name.
6) You can now expand the Hive you just loaded and make any needed changes.
7) When finished, highlight this Hive again and go to File, Unload Hive.

NOTE: You MUST unload the Hive prior to logging on to the users account. Otherwise XP may have trouble loading the user's profile.

Read more!