Using MSCONFIG to remove unwanted startup processes

Does your computer seem slower than it did when you first purchased it? In some ways, the slowness might be normal, since we do get used to its speed and it won’t seem as fast. But, there could be another reason. Over the years, we tend to collect software that runs in the background. One here, one there. In and of itself, not a big deal. But accumulate these over the years and your system starts to crawl. I can’t promise anything, but I can show you a possible way to speed up your computer by removing some of the unnecessary processes that are running. And don’t worry about what we will be doing. We won’t be deleting anything. We are just going to turn some things off that are no longer needed. You can always use the same methodology to turn it back on at a later date. So, Here we go.

To get started, click on the START button and locate the RUN command box. In Windows XP, you will first click on the word RUN,

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and then you will see the run dialog box.

For Windows Vista, it is already available and looks like this

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Now, in the RUN dialog box, type in “msconfig.exe” (without the quote marks) and press ENTER. You should now see this Windows Application.

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Now click on the STARTUP tab to show the processes that are loaded at…you guessed it, startup.

What we will be concentrating on is the COMMAND section of each line. If your msconfig window looks like mine, you’ll notice that it isn’t showing the entire COMMAND string. part of the COMMAND string is hidden by the LOCATION string. To allow you to see the entire COMMAND string, do this:

1. Left mouse click (and hold the mouse down) on that vertical line next to the word LOCATION.
2. With the left mouse still down, drag the mouse to the right, even past the end of the window itself.
3. Then let go of the mouse.

If you did it correctly, your window should now look something like this:

Ok, so now we will concentrate on the items that are in the COMMAND section. The very first thing I want you to notice is that (for the most part) the items in the command list fall into 1 of 2 folders. Look at the above image and you’ll see that there are items that are in the c:WINDOWSSystem32 folder or somewhere under the C:Program Files folder. Although this is not a hard and fast rule, you can be pretty safe dealing just with the items that are in C:Program Files and leaving the c:Windows files alone. With that in mind, you can now start looking for processes that you might no longer need. Again, as a reminder, we are only interested in items that are in C:Program Files folders. So, as an example, using the image above, the first item in MY list (and yours should be different since all computers are different) is the ACROTRAY. You might or might not have this in your list, but we’ll assume you do just to carry out this example. Lets say I don’t know what “acrotray.exe” does. What I would do, and what you should do, is open up a web browser, and goto the web site

ProcessLibrary.com

Now do a search on “acrotray.exe” without the quotes. You should get a screen of information that lets you know that the program is from ADOBE and that it is basically harmless. So, for me, I’ll uncheck the box so that it will not run at startup the next time. Remember, you can always gol back and enable it ANYTIME you want. The check box will still be there. OK. That wasn’t hard. Now lets look at one of the items in the c:WindowsSystem32 folder and you’ll see why we should stay away from those. Pick one out, and then type it’s name into the AnswersThatWork web site that you previously opened (or re-open it if you closed it). For our example, I am going to pick one that is named “igfxpers.exe”. Typing this into the ProcessLibrary.com Search box and pressing ENTER brings up this screen

You can see that it isn’t anything to worry about, but since it is in the WINDOWS folder, we’ll leave it. Ok, that is as fas as I can take you. Remember, if it is in a Windows folder, leave it. If it is in a c:Program Files folder, and it seems like something you might want to not load at startup, un-check the box. When you have finished unchecking all boxes that you want to, click on OK.

You are now prompted to restart your computer. You don’t have to now. You can start it later. BUT, the next time it starts up, you will see this message

make sure that you check the box “Don’t show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windows Starts.” so that message doesn’t show up each time you start you computer.

Well, that is it. Please email any questions or concerns to me and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.
Brian