Cleaning up the System Startup Registry items

In my previous post, I wrote one of the many tricks on how to customize and speed up your Windows load time. As mentioned in the previous post, this writing will be on how to cleanup those deactivated items from your MSCONFIG utility. In case you want to activate some of those deactivated startup items, it is recommended that you leave them as it is. It is not necessary that you have to delete them from your Registry. As I felt that those deactivated items dirtied the MSCONFIG, thus the reason for writing this trick. Maybe someone is out there among you who felt the same like I do.

As usual, I am not to be blamed in any way for any disastrously outcome to your system. Do the trick at your own risk and not mine. Lets get on with it again.

Please note: You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to be able to do this procedure. I am using Windows XP SP2 for this trick.

What is REGEDIT?
REGEDIT (short for Registry Editor) is an advanced tool for viewing and changing settings in your system registry, which contains information about how your computer runs. In Windows, system configuration information is centrally located in the Registry.


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Precaution: Although Registry Editor enables you to inspect and modify the registry, making incorrect changes can severely damage and break your system. In case if some thing may go wrong, always backup your Registry (Start > Run > Type regedit > File > Export > Save).

Methodology:
1. Click Start.

2. Click Run.

3. Type ‘regedit’ or ‘regedit.exe’ (without the ‘’)

4. The Registry Editor (regedit.exe) will popup (refer to the above REGEDIT picture).

5. Click on the [+] of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

6. Click on the [+] of SOFTWARE.


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7. Scroll down and click on the [+] of Microsoft.


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8. Click on the [+] of Shared Tools.

9. Click on the [+] of MSConfig.


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10. Click on the [+] of startupreg. A list of all the Startup items as shown in MSCONFIG Startup tab will be available underneath the startupreg.

11. Right click on each of the deactivated Startup items, click Delete and Confirm.

12. Close your Register Editor.

13. Open up your MSCONFIG and lookup the Startup tab. Viola!

RELATED UTILITY:

Startup Control Panel
Startup Control Panel is a nifty control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts. It's simple to use and, like all my programs, it's very small and won't burden your system. A valuable tool for system administrators!

Download | More Info