Are you familiar with “MSConfig”? If you are one of those computer savvy, you probably have used this piece of utility before to modify your startup programs. I have also used MSConfig before, but I just found a recent utility that was released by Sysinternals that was acquired by Microsoft on July 2006, and it is way better than MSConfig. The best thing is it’s FREE. I love FREE stuff, and you are too, right?
Basically, Autorun will give you detail list of currently configured startup programs as well as registry files and file system used in the startup process. The neat thing about it is that they were listed in the order they were processed by Windows, so you will know which is processed first. In the package, you will also receive “Autorunsc”, which is the command-line version on “Autorun.” These are the usage syntax for Autorunsc:
Usage: autorunsc [-a] | [-c] [-b] [-d] [-e] [-g] [-h] [-i] [-l] [-m] [-n] [-p] [-r] [-s] [-v] [-w] [-x] [user]
| -a | Show all entries. |
| -b | Boot execute. |
| -c | Print output as CSV. |
| -d | Appinit DLLs. |
| -e | Explorer addons. |
| -g | Sidebar gadgets (Vista and higher). |
| -h | Image hijacks. |
| -i | Internet Explorer addons. |
| -l | Logon startups (this is the default). |
| -m | Hide signed Microsoft entries. |
| -n | Winsock protocol and network providers. |
| -p | Printer monitor drivers. |
| -r | LSA providers. |
| -s | Autostart services and non-disabled drivers. |
| -t | Scheduled tasks. |
| -v | Verify digital signatures. |
| -w | Winlogon entries. |
| -x | Print output as XML. |
| user | Specifies the name of the user account for which autorun items will be shown. |
Download link: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zip
To run the utility directly from Live.Sysinternals.com: http://live.sysinternals.com/autoruns.exe
Detail page can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx