Too Much Crap In System Tray

I think it's called the System Tray, anyway. Over on the bottom right, where the clock resides,I have about 10 icons, which, IIRC, means about 10 different programs have proclaimed themselves important enough to be opened on start-up.

PC Magazine used to offer a cool tool, called Start Up Cop, which made it really easy to disable those suckers. But, it's no longer free, and I can't even buy it - I would have to subscribe to something, or something...

Are there any other tools like it around? And if there are, what are the programs that XP absolutely needs to open on start up? I know I want my anti-virus to start, but I think that in 98 there were 2 or 3 system files that were necessary too.

Thanks,
Angie

 

imo, it's contradictory to install a program so fewer programs run (think about it). So the best idea is to first open up all the systray icons and configure each software to not load up at bootup. next, look at the startup menu in the start menu and delete everythign that you don't need. then go to the registry, BACK IT UP, and go to \hkey_local_machine\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run and delete everything that's not needed. if you don't know whether you should keep it or not, you can always google the entry name and check to see if you can delete or not.

 

Blackviper's page will assist you in knowing what is safe to disable/delete in XP. Click here to go to the page.

 

Well, the program I used didn't stay in Memory. It was just something I opened when I needed to see what was loading when I booted up. It had a list of the programs, and all I had to do was click "disable" to It didn't really bother me to store the software on my harddrive. I"d rather do that than mess with the registry any old day. And my machine then loaded fast enough to suit me - can you guess I'm not a power user?

I don't know how to reconfigure the software not to boot at startup. That's why I liked the program. It made it very easy and fast too. It was a one-step operation - no registry-editing required. It worked in 2000 too, so maybe I'll try it on XP. I just thought there might be a more current option available.

I can't even figure out what "the startup menu in the start menu" means. If I Click "Start" then "Programs" then "Startup" it shows Empty. But I have Printers and bunches of other stuff sitting there in my tray.

BillH - Thanks for the tip - I was at Black Vipers site for quite a while yesterday, modifying a bunch of stuff according to his "safe" suggestions. I'll look again and see if he has more stuff I just didn't read.

Angie

 

Np problemo Angie I spent three days puzzling out stuff first time I was at BV's place. I'm wondering if the start up proggie you're talking about is mike Lin's. You can find it here . Like you said, simple to use and easy to understand.

 

I have always used a program called "startup CPL" it's free and easy to use and you can get it right here: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=619

 

Here's another one I've been using that works just dandy!

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4075

I also know Reg Cleaner 4.3 had a startup manager on it, but I'm not sure 4.3 should be used with XP.

Nothing like shedding weight when it comes to services, processes, and automatic anything. Happy trimming!!

 

Have you tied going to Start, Run, type "msconfig" (without the quotes), hit OK, then click on Startup Tab and unchecking everything you don't want to startup at startup? You will have to re-start your computer for them to take effect.