Sysinternals Autoruns 13.80

 Editor's Rating

Some of the things that slow down computers are the programs that start automatically during boot-up. Unfortunately, some of the applications that launch during startup are unnecessary while others are downright harmful. How do you stop such programs? The best way to manage startup programs is through the use of Sysinternals Autoruns, which provides comprehensive details about programs in different locations.

Using Sysinternals Autoruns

Sysinternals Autoruns is a portable application that launches and runs fast. Its interface may appear cluttered and even a bit confusing to inexperienced users, but seasoned users like IT professionals will immediately love what they see.

The application starts by displaying the tab called 'Everything,' which provides autorun details about Drivers, Services, Scheduled Tasks, Internet Explorer, Explorer and Logon. You can click individual tabs that will show you details pertaining to that feature only. It provides different details about the applications found, including their descriptions, publishers, image paths and timestamps.

In addition to showing auto-start applications, Sysinternals Autoruns displays a complete list of file system and Registry locations that can be configured for auto-start. Viewing auto-starts from different categories is as easy as clicking different tabs.

We found it easy to identify sections with errors, as Autoruns marked them in a different color. Clicking on an entry displayed details of the application on the lower part of the program window, including application name, size, time, version and full path. Right-clicking displayed a context menu that gave us the option to delete, copy, jump to entry, jump to image, search online, process explorer or check properties.

The program displays autoruns in the order in which Windows processes them. We could include the areas we wanted the program to list and display only third-party programs by hiding Windows entries. If you want to perform some functions like deactivating specific applications, then you must run Sysinternals Autoruns as administrator.

The filters we could use were for:

• Including empty locations
• Showing only per-user locations
• Verifying code signatures
• Hiding either all Microsoft entries or only Windows entries

We restarted our computer after tweaking it the way we wanted to see the results. There was slight improvement, but we believe the improvement could have been more significant had it not been that the system was already optimized relatively well.

Conclusion

If you want to know the systems that are configured to launch when you boot up your computer, then Sysinternals Autoruns is an ideal application to use. The application makes it easy to find, deactivate or even delete selected auto-start applications, and it provides more details and options than the stock MSConfig utility.

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