Start Up Question

[TacoTaru]

Recently my computer seems to have added a billion things to its startup so as I was fixing it I noticed there is a box checked that has nothing listed under the startup item or the command, but it has a location. Does anyone know what this is and why it's checked?

[Cephius]

No idea.. what's the location it's running from? Is there anything in the registry referencing it?

[TacoTaru]

The location says HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Currentversion...

And I don't know about the registry, how do I check? I'm not very computer savvy sorry.

[Avanarius]

The location says HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Currentversion...

And I don't know about the registry, how do I check? I'm not very computer savvy sorry.

My computer has the same thing, not sure what it's for but I got it after a fresh install so it might not be anything to worry about.

[Shuemue]

On msconfig, drag that column wider and get the full path please

[TacoTaru]

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Currentversion\Run

That's the full path :/

[Shuemue]

Just disable it to be sure, it's probably nothing though.

[Norellicus]

Disable, reboot, if nothing looks out of place then you're gold.

[Kohan]

If the entry isn't related to a recent, fresh install of Windows, it may be related to something else that's broken. Specifically, if it's related to a virus, spyware or another malicious thing, it may return after you disable it. Even though you're not very familiar with the Windows Registry, there are some basic things you can learn which may help you understand precisely what this entry is, or at least where it's coming from. If not, there are more effective ways of getting rid of it.

First, to ensure it isn't malicious software, it's suggested that you use some spyware removal program. One of the most frequently recommended ones is Spybot, which you can find here: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

There's another program which isn't mentioned as often, but should be, as it finds things AdAware and Spybot do not. (Of course, it never hurts to use more than one program if you're really concerned.) It's called MalwareBytes, and can be found here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/Malwarebyt...are_d5756.html

You probably already have a virus scanner. If you do and it's outdated, or you don't, I suggest Avast! Free Edition, considering that AVG has gone the way of the memory hog and Avira has pop-ups along with lots of false positives. It's here: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Now that you're equipped with some reasonable tools, run an anti-spyware scan or too, and a virus one to boot. Chances are you'll remove some stuff even though the registry entry you found could be completely harmless. Considering, it's good to do anyways.

When you're all done, download and use this program: http://majorgeeks.com/download3155.html. It's called HijackThis, and will let you save a full log of your Windows startup. After you've completed that, you can copy and paste the contents here for nitpicking if you're still having slow startup issues.