Please keep on those alternative links comming – even with very short comments. It’s a additional benefit of this site which I do appreciate.

Today the link to Sysinternals was a nice headup for me
:-)

It starts up with windows, and you can cancel it (shut it down) in the event you changed your mind and you don’t want those programs to start. Pause it. So the preprogrammed programs you had set to open, can be put on hold so to speak (until you’re ready for them to start, that is). Or skip over a program or programS you had originally set to open at a specific time and get to other apps that you rather have working, instead.

Very simple to use, but also very effective.

If you want to pay for one the best I have found is System Mechanic which also includes are very nice defrag utility.

RE: start-up programs/processes… About all Windows offers is the option of adding a program to one of 2 keys in the registry, or adding a shortcut to the Startup folder in the Start Menu. Vista offers an option for services to delay autostart. For better or worse that’s ’bout it, with no real control over order of startup. I’ve ever heard of problems from this in a normal home environment, & Magic Utilities isn’t skipping something you’d likely find elsewhere. That said, it is possible thru scripting to run more complex startup routines, but AFAIK that’s done manually. Again, nothing that can’t be done already using Windows’ built-in tools — just maybe easier for some than remembering or figuring out how to access those Windows tools.

FWIW at the top of this page it says: “Magic Utilities makes it easy for anyone.” I don’t see that it does anything I can’t do already. It is however something that I intend to use for less tech users, if for no other reason that it’s a lot easier than trying to teach them something they have no interest in. [if you've ever cleaned out another users internet explorer cache, & you found thousands of files, you know what I mean.]