Computer Topic of the Week: What’s in YOUR Startup Folder?
Posted in: Computer Tips & Tricks
Keeping unnecessary programs out of your Startup folder won’t turn your computer into a lightning-fast speed machine, and it most likely won’t make you fitter, happier, or more productive–but it is an easy and quick housekeeping task that can potentially decrease your computer’s loading/startup time. So let’s have a look, shall we?
Whether you knew it or not, if you own a PC running Windows (Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc.) you’ve got a folder on your computer called “Startup”.
Any programs that are hanging out in your Startup folder are given specific instructions to immediately load every time you turn on your computer. As you can imagine, having a lot of programs sitting in your Startup folder translates into a longer loading time each time you boot up your computer. Additionally, these programs are then already running and using up a chunk of your computer’s resources before you’ve so much as made one click of your mouse, fired up the Internet, or opened up your email program.
To make matters worse, during your computer’s lifetime, many software programs (both legitimate and malicious) will quietly, discreetly drop themselves into your Startup folder without telling you. This is why it’s smart to take a quick peek into your that folder every so often. You just want to ensure you don’t have any unwelcome guests.
So let’s go ahead and take that peek into your computer’s Startup folder. Doing so takes minimal effort – I promise!
- Step #1: Click the Start button located in the bottom left corner of your computer screen. (The button may be a green rectangle, or it may be circular with a red, green, blue, and yellow Windows graphic on it.)
- Step #2: Click All Programs.
- Step #3: Hover over the folder called Startup.
- Step #4: Look at the list of programs that shows up to the right as you continue hover your mouse over the folder.
Alrightee; we’ve found your Startup folder and are looking at its contents. Now: what do you see?
If all you see is the word “Empty” inside parentheses, congratulations! Your Startup folder is clean. For you, I suggest checking in on your Startup folder a few times a year to make sure nothing undesirable shows up.
Alternatively, if you see a program or list of programs sitting in this folder, you’ll want to go through the list of items one at a time and ask yourself, “Does this program really need to load itself automatically–without my asking it do so–every single time I start my computer?” If the answer is yes, leave the program there and do not touch it. If there answer is no, hover over the name of the program, right-click your mouse, then choose Delete. (Don’t worry!! This action doesn’t actually delete the program from your system; it only removes it from your Startup folder so that it will no longer load automatically every time you boot up your computer.)
If you see a program with which you’re unfamiliar sitting in your Startup folder, and you don’t know whether to leave it or delete it, chances are good that you can go ahead and delete it as your computer does not place critical files into this folder. However, to be on the safe side, I recommend first Googling the mystery program’s name and doing a couple minutes of online research to learn what the program is and does. (Tip: When searching, adding the words “startup folder” after the program’s name can often bring up more helpful results.)
After cleaning out your Startup folder, the worst-case scenario would be noticing no differences at all—really which isn’t such a bad worst-case scenario, in my opinion.
On the other hand, I’ve seen a few instances where people had seven to ten programs hiding away in their Startup folders – none of which needed to load upon their systems’ startup. After deleting these programs from their Startup folders, these people immediately noticed significant decreases in their computers’ loading/startup times. I hope you’re able to see similar results with your computer!
