Many Windows programs or apps are activated as soon as you start your Windows PC and start running in the background. The thing to remember here is that startup apps can contribute to your PC’s slow boot speed, so it’s important to manage them.
In previous versions of Windows, Vista and 7, users had to use Msconfig to add or remove programs from Windows startup, but Microsoft has made things a little simpler for Windows 8 and Windows 10 .
We’ve discussed how to add and remove Windows 8 programs here and a similar process applies to managing startup programs for Windows 10.
Also read: Here’s how to turn off Windows 10 updates.
How to remove programs from Windows 10 startup?
Disabling a program/application from running at startup time only requires you to start the task manager; it’s really as simple as that, with a few more steps.
You can simply launch the task manager by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting Task Manager.
Once started, click ‘Start’ between the tabs at the top of the Task Manager.
Next, select the app you want to prevent from starting at startup, right-click it and select “Disable”.
That’s it, now the disabled app won’t start when the PC starts next time. You can enable the program later if necessary through the Task Manager by following the same steps.
How to add programs to the start of Windows 10?
Adding a program to the Windows 10 start menu is a bit more complicated than just firing up the task manager and enabling/disabling it.
You will need to access the startup folder inside your Windows folder on the drive where Windows is installed.
You can try to get there via explorer or here’s a faster way: just type ‘shell: home’ in the ‘Run’ box and it will get the home folder for you.
The ‘shell’ command can be used to get to any hidden or special Windows folder, as long as you know the name of the folder.
Once in the ‘Startup’ folder, find the program you want to add to Windows 10 startup and then drag and drop it into the ‘Startup’ folder.
You will be asked whether or not you want to create a shortcut or, as in our case, a shortcut will be created automatically as soon as you drop the selected app into the ‘Startup’ folder.
Related: How to customize the Windows 11 start menu
Now you can check if your program has been added from the ‘Task Manager’ in the ‘Startups’ tab and you can enable/disable it from there.
You can add multiple applications to start at PC boot time, but this can negatively affect the time it takes for your machine to start and hinder its performance while running because more applications will share system memory.