When you restart your computer frequently or just power it on from being off, it can be somewhat frustrating to wait for a minute or two just to start up your computer. Believe it or not, this interval is only for normal conditions and no errors. If you have problems with other programs on your computer especially the start-ups, then you’re in bigger trouble. Problems with start-up programs are very difficult to trace as you might affect other programs while searching and removing the ones with errors. If that’s the case, the Autoruns software is here to lend a helping hand.

Autoruns is a utility program that provides you with a quick grasp of information about all the programs running on your computer, from the registry to the start-up programs and even web browser addons that might be slowing things down. It provides an easy way to keep track of those programs that are causing slowness on your computer.

The user interface is very simple, but it’s still better than the windows utilities like msconfig and regedit. You have a clear view on different things like start-ups, registry, scheduled tasks etc.

This program does only one task and that is to help you remove unnecessary files that are causing trouble on your computer and affects its overall performance including boot time. You have a display of the different processes currently running on your computer including those that caused the trouble. Adjacent to the different processes is the location of the file, if the file is no longer referenced but still running, a file not found label will be placed instead of the file location. Most likely files with this label are the ones causing the trouble; you have the option of either disabling the file by removing the check mark, or removing the process by clicking the delete button. However, you need to be extra cautious in removing or disabling processes especially start-ups because you might end up deleting important files which may damage your operating system.

Autoruns is not just your ordinary program, so it is not recommended for ordinary users who don’t have the knowledge about start-up programs and operating system concepts. It is recommended only for advanced users who already have the experience and the knowledge about registry, start-up programs etc.

The program is free and you can download the full version of Autoruns from its homepage here

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Main, Utilities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.