Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! Before we get started on this week's topic, I wanted to bring your attention to a follow-up and thank-you note from member Derrick C., who submitted the question about recovering his files from his SD card. It's always wonderful to hear back from a member, especially when the recovery of his files was a success! Thank you, Derrick, for the kind e-mail; I'm sure our members appreciate it very much. Now onto Mike's question on how he can completely remove items in his XP start-up folder.
Many great member suggestions came through for you, Mike, on how you can completely remove those start-up programs in Windows XP even when they continue to reappear after a system reboot. Some members suggested using utilities that will assist you in that task (Ccleaner by Piriform was recommended most), yet some people recommended digging into the registry to get at the ones that are a bit trickier. If you are thinking of going that route, unless you know what you are doing, registry tampering is not recommended, as one simple mistake can keep your system from running.
A few others suggested that if those particular programs you are trying to get rid of from the Windows start-up aren't being used, why not just simply uninstall them altogether, but since we don't what exactly your intentions are, it's just one of those we had to throw out there. In some cases if the start programs continue to persist after reboot, it is possible that those start-ups are required by your system and will start up regardless of what you tell it to do. Some members even say it's likely that these items return to your system start-up after programs are updated. So as you can see, the possibilities abound. I have chosen a few member answers to get you started, but please comb through all the answers provided in the discussion thread, and I'm sure that one of our member solutions will work for you. Good luck to you. Thanks to all who participated; your contribution is invaluable to this community. Have a spectacular weekend!
Cheers!
- Lee
Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com |
I'm running Windows XP Pro SP3 installed. How do I completely remove items in my startup folder that do not have a check mark in the box before the entry? I want to totally take it out of there so I don't even see it. There are times when I remove the check mark in the box and the next time or two when I reboot the item reappears again with a check mark in the box. Why is this happening? When I type msconfig in the run box and go to startup tab and remove the check mark, it sometimes comes back with a check mark there. I'm sure there is a way to completely remove the items that do not have a check mark in it as well but I don't know how to do it. I hope you or the members can submit an answer to my problems. 
Featured member solutions
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