Windows Task Manager, as well as the Startup Apps page in Windows Settings, can show you which apps automatically start when you log in and let you disable the ones you don’t want launching with Windows. But what you see in Task Manager’s Startup Apps tab is only a small slice of what’s really going on under the hood during startup. If you want to see the complete picture, you have to use the Autoruns utility.
According to the Windows Task Manager, my PC has only 16 startup apps
Most of which I disabled from launching at startup
According to Windows Task Manager, my PC has 16 startup apps. These include Windows components and apps such as the Windows Security notification icon in the system tray and Microsoft Teams, as well as third-party apps and processes such as various game launchers, a few Adobe-related items (CCXProcess, which manages certain features used by Adobe apps, as well as the Adobe Creative Cloud app), and a handful of other third-party apps I regularly use.
I’ve disabled most of these apps from starting because they can consume system resources, I don’t need them at startup, or both. That leaves me with just four startup apps that I allow to run when I log in, each of which I need from the get-go. These include Microsoft Teams, the Windows Security notification icon, and two monitor-related apps: one for managing my multi-monitor setup and another that launches an all-black screensaver I use for my OLED monitor.
On the surface, this doesn’t look even remotely bloated, but things are much busier under the hood, and Task Manager won’t show you that.
OS
Windows, macOS, iPhone, iPad, Android
Brand
Microsoft
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Autoruns showed me what’s really happening during Windows startup
It listed more than 100 startup entries
If you want to really see what’s going on during Windows startup, you should use Autoruns, a very handy tool that’s part of Microsoft’s Sysinternals suite. The utility can show you every app, scheduled task, driver, background service, shell extension, codec, and many other startup entries Windows Task Manager won’t list.
After I launched Autoruns, hid empty locations, as well as Microsoft and Windows entries (I highly recommend doing so because empty locations just add clutter, while disabling a Microsoft or Windows entry can prevent your PC from booting), and gave Autoruns some time to scan my PC, I was greeted with more than 100 startup entries—almost 10 times the number shown in Task Manager.
I didn’t panic because most of these entries are supposed to launch at startup. For instance, the Drivers tab lists all the drivers that load along with Windows, as they should because they’re needed for your PC’s hardware to function. The Explorer tab entries are also supposed to be there because they add context menu options when you right-click something, such as extracting an archive with WinRAR, assuming you have WinRAR installed. What I was really interested in, though, were the Logon, Scheduled Tasks, and Services tabs.
I didn’t touch most of the startup entries
But I did disable some, as well as delete a few leftover ones
The Logon tab showed me two entries I didn’t see in Task Manager: Google Chrome Installer and Google Platform Experience Helper. I didn’t disable them because they haven’t caused any issues, but you might want to disable the latter if it’s causing problems for you. It’s a Chrome-related background component that can sometimes consume unnecessary resources or cause hangs when logging in to Windows. Interestingly, I didn’t find a Firefox entry, even though Firefox is my primary browser. I also found a GalaxyClient entry, which was likely a leftover from one of my previous GOG Galaxy installations, so I deleted it.
The Scheduled Tasks tab also didn’t reveal anything suspicious. There was one missing file related to Windows Update (MusNotification.exe), but after looking into it, it appears that the file was used in Windows 10 to notify users about Windows updates, but it isn’t used in Windows 11. I left it alone because it doesn’t appear to do anything. Interestingly, I also found an entry that launches SanDisk Dashboard (a monitoring app for SanDisk and WD SSDs) at startup, which I’d enabled from within the app. The interesting part is that the app doesn’t appear in the Startup Apps list in either Task Manager or Windows Settings.
Next up was the Services tab. I didn’t find anything suspicious there either, just a couple of services I’d rather not have running, such as those related to Ubisoft Connect and Rockstar Games Launcher, so I disabled them.
I also checked the rest of the tabs, but they were either empty or contained entries I didn’t want to touch for fear of breaking something (such as the Drivers and Codecs tabs). That said, I did delete a few AVerMedia-related entries from the Codecs tab because they were leftovers from when I tested the AVerMedia X’Tra Go GC515 (a handheld dock with a built-in capture card). I don’t use it anymore, so I knew removing those entries wouldn’t cause any issues. I also left the Known DLLs tab alone because none of the entries were causing problems, and based on my research, it’s normal for many of them to be highlighted in yellow in Autoruns.
Autoruns can show you what’s really happening behind the scenes after your PC boots
All in all, Autoruns can be very useful if you want to see what’s going on under the hood during Windows startup because it can reveal a slew of startup entries that Task Manager doesn’t show. It can be especially handy if you want to audit everything Windows loads during startup.
For instance, I found a few leftover entries from apps I no longer use and from prior app installations, which I was able to delete. I also disabled a few services related to game launchers I rarely use because I don’t want them running on my PC unless I manually launch those apps. Other than that, the remaining entries weren’t a cause for concern, so I left them alone.
If you decide to use Autoruns, don’t start disabling or deleting entries left and right until you’ve made sure it’s safe to do so. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy to make a mistake that can mess up your Windows installation or, in extreme cases, even prevent your PC from booting.
