My father who just got home from abroad brought with him a desktop PC. It has almost the same specs as my own desktop computer aside from the graphics card (mine is more suited for gaming) but it was unbelievably slow. Turns out he has a whopping 12 unnecessary startup programs.
Some programs are meant to start together with Windows like your anti-virus program or your Garena client if you’re the hard core gamer. Unfortunately, some unwanted programs (yeah, we’re talking to you Yahoo! Messenger) included themselves to the startup lineup. They don’t necessarily do anything to your computer; they just waste a lot of resources, increases startup time, and annoys you with the startup lag.
Fortunately there’s an easy way to disable startup programs in Windows 7 and that is via System Configuration or better known as msconfig.
Disable Startup Programs in Windows 7
Step 1. Click the Start Button. Type “msconfig†without the quotes in the search bar. Hit Enter.
Step 2. Click the Startup Tab. Here you’ll see the various startup items as well as several information about them. If you’ll look on the left-hand side. You will notice some programs have a check mark on them while others have none. Those with check marks are programs that boot-up together with Windows.
Step 3. Untick the programs that you want to disable. As you can see, I’d like to boot my Avira antivirus at startup as well as my Garena client so I can stack on all those gems. If you’re happy with your choices click Apply.
Step 4. You will then be asked to restart your PC. Click ok.
That’s basically it!
Word of Caution
MSConfig is a System Configuration window that can configure a lot of other things than just startup programs. As such you should be careful which programs to disable. Blindlessly disabling programs may result in fatal errors in your PC.