So you have a very very slow computer that is flagging up messages about viruses and how to make it run faster? You may well have something nasty on there. But how do you find out what is running at startup and how do you prevent them from doing that?
The most useful tool in your armoury was one of the Sysinternals tools that Microsoft acquired. It is called “Autoruns” and you can get a copy here.
For the less technical user or for those that cannot get onto the Internet, you have a few other choices:
Vista – Fire up Defender
Tools
Software Explorer.
In the Category list, choose Startup Programs.
XP – MSConfig
Services tab
If you have a Browser Helper Object or BHO causing you problems, Autoruns or HijackThis will help or else you need to fire-up an alternative web-browser and get one of the tools that way. This is a good reason why running IE and firefox is a good idea…
For the true engineer, you can also manually hack the registry, maybe using a tool like silentrunners to point you in the right direction. Take a trip to mvps as well because it may just point you at the right registry key.
Finally, there is a really good resource on common reasons for Windows to shutdown or startup slowly here.
