How to turn off startup programs in Windows 7?

You should know how to turn off startup programs in Windows 7, because if you’re having a lot of startup programs, it can significantly slow down your boot time. I always turn off programs that automatically start when I log on. To change your startup programs we need to access the system configuration utility.

There aren’t many way to access your startup programs. The startup folder at C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup does not include all startup programs, therefore you have to remove them via the Windows system configuration utility “msconfig”.

1. Enter msconfig into the search field and click on msconfig.exe to start the configuration utility:

2. Go to the tab “Startup” and deselect all programs that you don’t want/need on startup. You can also adjust the list of startup services on the tab “Services” (advanced). If you deselect a program here to stop it from launching on startup you also won’t have the tray icon until you start the program manually.

I haven’t checked it myself for some time, so I unchecked WebcamMax, DeskSpace, IObit Security and GoogleUpdate. You can also re-enable startup programs that are currently not active.

3. Make sure you deselect as many programs as possible and you can really save a lot of time on startup. Then click on “Apply”.

Add new startup programs to Windows 7

You might have noticed that there is no button to add new startup programs to your system. As mentioned above, there is a startup folder in Windows 7 where you have to copy your shortcuts to.

The startup folder location is: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

If you need more instructions to configure and add new programs, read the tutorial How to add startup programs in Windows 7