wondering where the windows start up
folder is or how to use it effectively
this is been with make use of comm and
two in this video I'm gonna show you how
to use the windows startup folder
effectively along with a few tricks for
managing it now the first thing we need
to talk about is what the windows
startup folder is and it's pretty simple
all the startup folder is as a special
location on your computer that anything
you put in there windows will run as
soon as you boot up your computer now
there are actually two startup folders
on your computer they're kind of buried
in the file system but windows includes
a couple of shortcuts we can use to
access them so if you open up a file
explorer window or just press Windows
key and are to open up run either one
works just go ahead and type shell colon
startup all one phrase with no spaces
and hit enter and you'll jump right to
your startup folder which again is
buried so this is the easier way
anything that you see in here is going
to automatically run it startup
depending on how new your computer is
and what software you have installed you
may already have a few programs here
these will run when the computer starts
up so as you can see I have an
autocorrect script running as well as my
VPN service now if you want to access
the startup folder for everybody on your
computer type in Shell common startup so
there's no space between the colon and
common but there is a space between
common and startup when you open this
folder you'll see the startup folder for
everybody so anything in here will
automatically run for all users on your
computer so these are two easy folders
to access but what if you want to add a
your own startup program to them well
it's pretty easy note that most software
does have an option in its preferences
that there's just a checkbox that says
we're on it startup so you should look
at your programs options before you do
this because that's an easier way but if
you're using a piece of software that
doesn't have that option you can make
your own shortcut so what you want to do
is you want to first find the program
you want to create a shortcut for in
this case we'll do Firefox so start
typing Firefox or whatever you want to
do in your Windows Start menu and then
right click its icon choose send to and
then desktop create shortcut and that
will send a shortcut icon for that
program onto your desktop I already have
one here and then all you have to do is
drag and drop that icon into the startup
folder or cut and paste it in this case
whoops
in this case we'll press control X to
cut and then control V to paste and then
just to provide administrative
permissions to copy to that folder and
you'll see the Firefox icon in there now
the reason we use a shortcut for this is
so that you don't have to move the
actual installation file the normal
executable and if you ever decide you
don't want Firefox running at startup
you can just delete this icon and you
don't have to worry about replacing the
original executable so I'm going to
delete this just for now and that's how
you manually add a program to startup
now that's that you can do it this way
but there's a more powerful way to do it
and that's through the windows task
manager so to open the task manager you
can press ctrl shift escape on your
keyboard or right-click on the taskbar
and choose task manager once it's open
if you see a basic window like this just
click on more details and then choose
the startup tab now here you're gonna
see all the programs that are set to
automatically run on your computer and
you get a couple of key details about
them you can sort by name obviously but
you can also sort by startup impact
which shows you how much impact that has
on your computer so something that's
high is gonna take longer and use more
energy something that's low is gonna be
pretty minimal and there's also a lot of
programs you'll see that are none or not
measured so here you can go through and
if there's any software on here that you
don't really use you can click on it and
then just click the disable button in
the corner to prevent it from running it
startup some software you can read more
about this in the linked article but
some software you should always have
running it startup your backup software
is important so that you don't have to
remember to backup manually your
antivirus software so that you don't let
me obviously you want that running at
all times and then any software you use
normally so like dittos clipboard
manager i don't want to have to remember
to start that every time i open up my
computer so i have that running
automatically um so that's that and then
some programs you shouldn't have running
at startup you don't really need any
kind of like game or media software so
you don't need like iTunes or discord or
steam unless you use those all the time
the the draw they take when you boot
your computer up is not worth having
them run at startup so just open them
when you need to I mean you don't need
things like adobe reader helper or
spotify web help or that is on this
as well so you can disable those and
then real quick while you're in here if
you right-click upon this header bar a
long name you can add a couple of
additional bits of information the task
manager so in addition to startup impact
and startup type you can choose command
line which will show you where the
program is located and this startup type
field will tell you registry or folder
if it says registry the program probably
set itself to run its startup when you
installed it or you check the box that
says let this run its startup if its
folder then there's a shortcut for it
and either the folders we talked about
earlier and that is but basically all
you need to know about the Windows
startup folder so it's important to know
what's running at startup on your
computer because the more that's running
obviously the higher of a draw it has on
your system so we recommend going
through and disabling anything that you
don't use normally so that it reduces
that draw on your computer and then
enable things that you do actually use
for more convenience for you we hope you
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