82. Eliminate unwanted programs from boot up

You will find that many of the programs you install on your system set portions of themselves to run automatically when you start up your computer. Each program that runs on startup not only consume system resources but also extends the length of time it takes your PC to fully boot.

Since it is generally unnecessary to have any programs running in the background (other than security software like virus-scanners or firewalls) disable your unwanted startup programs to increase your startup speed and conserve system resources.

The easiest way to go about this task is to use the MSCONFIG utility, which may be familiar to users of Windows 9x. This handy program contains a list of software which is set to start when you boot your PC. You can then easily disable and re-enable (if necessary) these items.

Go to 'start\run' and type 'msconfig' to access the utility.

The 'startup' tab in MSCONFIG provides access to several other applications that are started at boot up and are running in the background. By examining their Filenames and directories, you should be able to get a feeling for what is necessary and what is not.

Be aware than several viruses and worms have a habit of disguising themselves with authoritative sounding Windows system file names, such as the Win32.spybot.worm as MSCONFIG32.EXE. Leave these for now if you are not sure.

The next place you should go is 'start\programs\startup' which is a directory Windows XP uses to launch application shortcuts on boot-up. If you remove the shortcuts from this directory, the applications will not load on startup. This directory can also be a repository for various badness such as spyware and virus software, so if there are files here which are not shortcuts and you don't recognize them, you may wish to consider removing them anyways, as Windows will not place critical files in this directory.

83. Scan your PC for spyware and Adware

Along the lines of the above tip, various programs may also be operating on your computer without your knowledge, transmitting information about your surfing habits to interested commercial enterprises.

These spyware and adware programs (including the infamous Gator) are bundled in with many popular freeware programs like Kazaa Media Desktop, and can also be 'caught' from websites which host the software as part of their entrance requirements. Beware of text boxes asking you if you would like to install so-and-so program while you are surfing.

If you are interested, we wrote a whole article on the topic. To summarize, these programs can compromise both your privacy and security, as well as your Internet performance, so removing them is a good idea. To do this, you should use either Lavasoft's Adaware or Spybot Search and Destroy.

Both programs are fairly straightforward and easy to use, and will effectively rid your PC of pesky parasite programs. See the article for more details.

84. Disable boot virus detection

The boot virus detection setting is a holdover from the early days of computer viruses, when the greatest threat was from virus programs that wrote themselves into the boot sector of hard disks or the partition table. Some motherboards are equipped to monitor any attempt to write to these areas during boot up, and halt the process with a warning for the user.

Since every version of Windows after 3.1 needs to write to these areas during install, and the modern virus style of choice is the email worm, this feature is now obsolete. Disable it for convenience and increased boot speed. It will commonly be found in the 'advanced BIOS features' section of the BIOS.