BlogStartupMonitor

StartupMonitor

Monday, December 13, 2004 by digitalpeer

Any computer I've ever been asked to service has from 10 to 50 applications starting up when they logon. While I'm sitting there waiting, they usually say something like "my computer is so slow, do you think I need a new one?" My solution at that point is simply to delete absolutely everything in their startup folder and what's in

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

and

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

But, a week later it's all back. Their AOL icon is there and their "i don't know what that is" icon is there. There's a handy little tool to monitor what gets added to startup, and that's what this whole article is about.

StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn't even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents those utterly useless tray applications from registering themselves behind your back, and it acts as a security tool against trojans like BackOrifice or Netbus.