How do I manage what programs startup in Windows 8?

There's a nifty new tab in the 'Task Manager' called 'Startup' where I can manage the program that run at startup.

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BUT... It doesn't show all of the application that run at startup:

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Some of the hidden culprits are:

Steam
Skype
Google Drive
Dropbox
Cisco VPN
Java Update

"What about the registry?" Here's what's found in there:

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Which doesn't contain all of the running programs.

How do I manage these startup applications from within Windows 8?

James Mertz

Posted 2012-10-22T04:44:32.680

Reputation: 24 787

possible duplicate of Stop programs from starting up automatically on boot on Windows

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-12-15T16:44:26.137

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 This isn't quite a dupe of the linked question. All of the solutions on the 'dupe' are items I've already addressed in the question (since both msconfig is the same as the startup tab above, and the startup folder no longer exists in the start menu). – James Mertz – 2014-12-16T22:35:36.067

I'm surprised I have to say this to a 15K+ user (maybe you didn't have it back in 2012 ;) ) -- If you'd like newer/updated answers to the existing question, place a bounty on it. As for the answers there, one of them specifically suggests Autoruns, which is what you accepted as "the answer" here. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-12-16T22:41:28.950

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007: This is not a duplicate. The linked question is for Windows XP. – bwDraco – 2014-12-18T05:40:49.930

Possible duplicate of How to get a list of all software that starts automatically when Windows 7 starts?

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2015-12-07T22:52:00.453

Keywords "from within Windows 8" meaning using Windows itself and not the application's settings, right? – Louis – 2012-10-22T04:47:48.747

@Louis that's correct... I don't want to have to go into each application and manually make the changes... plus some (cough cough SKYPE) don't even obey my command to not run at startup. – James Mertz – 2012-10-22T04:50:21.253

I wonder if they're getting autostarted by some other means. Maybe under services? – Journeyman Geek – 2012-10-22T04:51:29.780

1@JourneymanGeek They are probably in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, but I don't know of a Windows tool, besides Regedit, that let's you change those. – Louis – 2012-10-22T04:55:44.883

1@Louis I'd be really sad if I have to resort to using regedit – James Mertz – 2012-10-22T04:58:31.150

1Just to note that msconfig does not work here. – Journeyman Geek – 2012-10-22T06:16:31.703

@KronoS check out this article where dropbox is showing up in startup manager.

– avirk – 2012-10-22T06:33:43.890

@KronoS see also: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run – Louis – 2012-10-22T07:23:55.150

Answers

(This tool is not built in Window 8 but...) You can use Autoruns from Windows Sysinternals to figure out what applications are starting up on startup. You can also disable them too.

Ganesh R.

Posted 2012-10-22T04:44:32.680

Reputation: 4 869

2+1. Probably no other app knows all the possible startup locations like this one does (no surprises, since it's from MS). – Karan – 2012-10-22T20:12:44.940

There is always Registry Editor (regedit.exe).

Apps that launch on startup are located in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

You would stop an item from launching by deleting its key.

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It's up to you if you want to save them or not (i.e., just by jotting down the strings, and the key type), in case you want to readd them later.

There's also this key location as well: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig Which yields the following:

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Deleting the entire folder should stop if from running at startup.

Of course this is not an elegant way to manage things. I would only use it if the application didn't respect its own settings.

Louis

Posted 2012-10-22T04:44:32.680

Reputation: 18 859

I would like a more elegant solution, and this also doesn't cover all of the application either. – James Mertz – 2012-10-22T05:09:57.737

@KronoS I would too, hope there's a better answer. – Louis – 2012-10-22T05:31:20.737

2I updated your answer to reflect where I found the keys. Hope you don't mind. – James Mertz – 2012-10-22T15:23:14.923

Absolutely nothing better than CCleaner for this, now with added Win8 supprt. Look under Tools -> Startup:

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To remove an entry simply right click on it and select "Delete":

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And then select Ok:

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Note: You might need to run CCleaner as admin to remove these entries.

tchakravarty

Posted 2012-10-22T04:44:32.680

Reputation: 269

Unfortunately, in my specific case, using CCleaner doesn't work (no matter if I use as admin or not). But this may be due to a hard drive failing as well as my system is acting up now. Will test on a more stable system and see if this does work there. – James Mertz – 2012-10-22T15:20:51.370

3CCleaner is awful. Just saying... – Tanner Faulkner – 2012-10-22T15:43:38.887

Go on then, elaborate. – tchakravarty – 2012-10-22T17:16:55.790

I'm sure that msconfig.exe still works in Windows-8 too. You can manage your startup items there. You can also can use free version of CCleaner and a very good application named soluto which can measure the booting time and let you know which program you can disable to decrease the boot time.

How to geek has an article about soluto which covers on how to use it.

avirk

Posted 2012-10-22T04:44:32.680

Reputation: 15 151

3msconfig just throws you back to task manager. – Journeyman Geek – 2012-10-22T06:16:08.380

@JourneymanGeek I didn't know about that. Thanks for mention. – avirk – 2012-10-22T06:19:23.293

I would highly recommend against editing the registry directly.

There is a nice tool by sysinternals called autoruns:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

screenshot of autoruns

It finds all possible places for an application to startup (including services) and presents in an easy way to turn them off (and back on again if you notice system issues)

Natalie Adams

Posted 2012-10-22T04:44:32.680

Reputation: 2 071