Autorun - when is it necessary?

E

EINREB

Member
I have installed a program that lists all the programs that my computer loads in when I boot up, and I am amazed by the amount of them. To speed up my boot process, I like to deactivate most of them. I certainly do not need programs sitting there, ready to be used, when I use them maybe once in the three months or so.
What happens if I remove programs from that list? I do not want to get rid of them, but how do I activate any of them when I need it?
Any comments?
 
The easiest way for me to tell what you have running at bootup is to post a hijackthis log. It will tell me what runs at bootup.

Download the HijackThis installer from here.
Run the installer and choose Install, indicating that you accept the licence agreement. The installer will place a shortcut on your desktop and launch HijackThis.

Vista and Windows 7 users must right click on the hijackthis icon and click on run as. If the run as option doesn't appear then press and hold the shift key while right clicking on the icon to get it to appear.



Click Do a system scan and save a logfile

Most of what HijackThis lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

Post the logfile that HijackThis produces
 
John, I thought reducing the number of prorams at start up would be a good idea.
However I tried hijack from your post and now cannot use the desktop computer.I have XP & Win 7 dual booted and both worked fine until hijack. I,m not sure what happened but a page comes up saying 'disk read error'. I, tried to get into 'safe mode'but no luck.
Any ideas to solve this? [using F8 and delete]
I think the problem is in the registry or some other part,not the hdd because I took out the disk and put in a spare. Then I reinstalled XP,took about 20 minutes,and could use it OK in the basic form. I shut down then hoping it would start up again properly but no the same 'disk read error' came up. I am doing this on my laptop. Any comments appreciated. firefrost.
 
firefrost said:
John, I thought reducing the number of prorams at start up would be a good idea.
However I tried hijack from your post and now cannot use the desktop computer.I have XP & Win 7 dual booted and both worked fine until hijack. I,m not sure what happened but a page comes up saying 'disk read error'. I, tried to get into 'safe mode'but no luck.
Any ideas to solve this? [using F8 and delete]
I think the problem is in the registry or some other part,not the hdd because I took out the disk and put in a spare. Then I reinstalled XP,took about 20 minutes,and could use it OK in the basic form. I shut down then hoping it would start up again properly but no the same 'disk read error' came up. I am doing this on my laptop. Any comments appreciated. firefrost.
Click to expand...

Hijackthis will not cause this issue you have. Sounds like you have a bad hard drive. You get this error before you even see the windows splash screen?
 
It is a relatively new hard drive and has worked normally since install. It was only when I tried hijack everything went . Can I clear the registry etc and instal both ops again from scratch but how , no safe mode. Have to go off now will check tomorrow. Thanks.
 
John, No I can't post the screen as it is on the computer with the fault.
However there is not any additional info on it.
The first sceen just lists primary master, slave,secondary master slave etc then jumps to
PCI device listing
bus no device no func no etc

verifying dmi pool data
boot from atpi cdrom

a disk error occurred
press cont, alt, del to restart.

just 2 screens then stops.
By pressing del I can access cmos set up to change boot order etc. [blue screen]

I put in the windows xp disk and selected 'repair'. It asks for the admin password but I have never had one. bought new,
Tried various even inserting nothing but no luck. Could not continue with repair.
Put in win 7 disk,checked start up repair and no fault found.
The fact that I could install xp on a spare hd and use it until close down makes me think the faut is not the drives. When i tried to access after close down i was back 2 screens and stop. Is there a way to get the registry or what ever back to normal and then re-instal the 2 op systems.? help appreciated.
 
Thats not a registry issue, thats definately a hardware issue with the pc. Either bad hard drive or loose data/power cable or motherboard. If you are getting that error before windows even starts to load its a hardware issue. Test the drive for errors?
 
Thanks for the comments, how can i check the drive for errors when i can't get past the second screen? I also have an almost new WD drive i use for back up,do you think that if i formatted that and istalled XP and 7 the problem would be solved?
I should have read your first post more carefully [ the part in red ] I don't think i followed that precisely.
 
The drive is a western digital, 160gb IDE pata. I bought two of them and use the second as an external back up. I decided to remove the one in the computer and replace it with the back up one. I formatted it and have just installed windows 7 on it.
Everything has gone ok so far but i don't want to shut down yet because you may remember in post 3 i had installed the original 40 gb drive and managed to instal xp on but when i closed down everything was lost again. With the computer live now i hope to carry out some tests to prove that this time when i shut down it will restart properly. I will leave it on over night so that I can work on it tomorrow when i have time.
I googled 'disk read error' and it seems to happen a lot. Any comments welcombe.
 
johnb35 said:
The easiest way for me to tell what you have running at bootup is to post a hijackthis log. It will tell me what runs at bootup.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your offer, I may take you up on it, but it does not answer my question:
What happens if I deselect them and how do I activate a deselected program when I need it?

I think I know the answer, i.e. I go to the file which contains the deselected program and execute the .exe program. Or make a shortcut, save it, and execute it.
Correct?
 
You can use the msconfig utility, startup tab, to set them to start again at bootup. All you do is uncheck them to stop them from running and then check them to make them start.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top