Autoruns is a powerful tool that can be used to track startup applications and add-ons. By tracking these items, you can determine which ones are causing problems and take steps to fix them. To use Autoruns, open the program and click the “File” menu item. From this menu, select “Open.” This will open the Autoruns window. To track startup applications, first select the “Startup” tab. This tab contains a list of all the startup programs that are currently running on your computer. To see which ones are causing problems, select one of these programs and click the “Details” button. This will open a new window that contains more information about this program. To track add-ons, first select the “Add-ons” tab. This tab contains a list of all the add-ons that are currently installed on your computer. To see which ones are causing problems, select one of these add-ons and click the “Details” button. This will open a new window that contains more information about this add-on. ..
The Autoruns tool from Sysinternals lets you see pretty much every single startup item at a glance: applications, services, explorer add-ons, services, drivers, and even scheduled tasks. This tool is phenomenal for managing everything at once, but it also has another interesting use.
Overview
Here’s the default window that shows up when you launch the application, showing you loads of data.
If you right-click on an entry, you can choose to search online to find out what it is, delete it (be careful) or even use the Jump to option to launch regedit focused on that item in the registry.
If you are having an issue that you believe is 3rd-party component related, you can choose to Hide Microsoft Entries so you’ll only see the non-Microsoft software in the list. This is an excellent tool for troubleshooting problems with Internet Explorer not working, because you can easily see all 3rd party explorer add-ons at once.
Using Compare
Here’s where it gets really interesting, because there is a Compare option that you can use to track items being added to your computer and making it slower.
First you’ll have to save the current Autoruns file, preferably when you first get your computer and it’s running perfectly.
Now you can use the Compare option on the same menu after you install software, or a few months later when you notice your computer is getting slower. Just click Compare, and then select your saved file (saving the file with a dated filename is very useful in this case)
Now Autoruns will update the list with bright green anywhere there is a new entry in the list. It doesn’t show items that no longer exist in the current configuration, but that’s fine because we only care about the new items that are making our computer really slow.
Note: The icon shown is clearly the Mozy icon, and this is a contrived example for the purposes of this article. Mozy provides an excellent automated internet backup service, well recommended by the Geeks.
I’d recommend running this tool right after you do a clean install of Windows Vista, so you have a reference point to go back to when you notice your computer is getting slow.
Download Autoruns from Microsoft.com
Mysticgeek also wrote an article about Autoruns last week.
