xp questions

thebaz

hi,
i have a couple of basic xp questions :-

is there a super admin account in xp , or is the admin account the highest privilleged account you can have ? is the admin set as default for all new accounts ?

second question , anyway my xp laptop is really slow on startup, i want to check what programs are been launched when machine is booted up, as i am sure there are some startup prorgrams that can be turned off for startup.
Actually do i use services to turn programs to manual start , i.e. not to start and launch on bootup ?
i assume i will have to change settings for all my accounts seperatly, actually does each account have its own seperate set of programs for startup.

Thanks.

dahamsta

That was 5 questions.

thebaz wrote:

is there a super admin account in xp

No.

is the admin account the highest privilleged account you can have ?

Yes.

is the admin set as default for all new accounts ?

The first account is created as an Admin. The Administrator radio button is selected when you go to create a new user, so in a way, yes it's the default.

i want to check what programs are been launched when machine is booted up

Try this.

Actually do i use services to turn programs to manual start , i.e. not to start and launch on bootup ?

You shouldn't fiddle with services unless you know what you're doing. Try reading this before you start.

i assume i will have to change settings for all my accounts seperatly

Services are system-wide. All of the startup settings are system-wide bar HKCU and Startup (user) (ref Statup CPL above).

adam

Ruu_Old

What he said, be very careful disabling services unless you know about them. There are however, many services that are worthless and more security issues than anything else, but read they depend on the users system. Good luck.

thebaz

thanks for feedback :-

can you clarify that without external software there is no way of verifying what gets loaded at start up apart from the services dialog .
On older versions of windows you used be able to check the
users -- start -- programs -- startup on explorer ,
in xp it does not seam to give an accurate view of whats gets loaded at start -up -- are you meant to use services instead .

Thanks again.

feylya

Start - Run - msconfig - ok. That should help.

kaizersoze

Try the simple things first.
Click START -->ALL PROGRAMS and look for the "Start up" folder in the list. Delete any shortcuts you see there. Don't worry, you're not deleting the programs, just the start up shortcuts. If there is anything anti-virus listed there (unlikely) then leave it there. Reboot.
Then, look in the system tray (bottom right where the clock is). Each icon there is a program running. All that needs to be showing there is the clock, sound (little speaker), antivirus software, firewall (maybe), network connection (maybe) and possibly your power settings icon. Anything else can be removed. Check the settings of any other programs listed there. They usually have a "load at startup" option smoewhere in their settings.
If you're using Norton AV or Norton Internet Security then consider using something lighter like AVG. Norton is an awful resource hog.
Also too many desktop shortcuts can slow up startup aswell.

thebaz

I use AVG for anti virus and this has 2 automatic startup services , can i set these to manual, as i do not want to schedule the AVG run & updates , i will run myself as required.

Same applies to AOL, i use AIM periodically, can i set AOL Connectivity service to manual ? and then just launch aim icon when required ?

thanks again.

KeRbDoG

thebaz wrote:

anyway my xp laptop is really slow on startup, i want to check what programs are been launched when machine is booted up, as i am sure there are some startup prorgrams that can be turned off for startup.

To see whats running on Windows start up:

Start -> Run,
Type in MSCONFIG
click OK
click on the Startup tab

(edit: just noticed that feylya said the same thing

sioda

Dont delete one of the AVG start up as one of them is the main AVG loader as for the update one that can be disabled from within AVG switch scheduling off and update to manual

thebaz

my Dell laptop has got slow again on startup.
I recently installed a HP 7160 printer and the accompaning software from cd .
There are 2 exe in statup , under MSCONFIG :-
one seams to be a HP update exe (hphupd08.exe) , the other some schedule exe (hpWuschd2.exe)
When i disable them it gives a warning about requiring administative rights , even though i'm logged on as an administrator , and on reboot asks me to reset the config.
Any idea how to disable these 2 HP startup exe's properly ?
so i dont have to wait an age for my computer to load properly.

dohouch

On my machine I use Hibernation, and set up so that when I press the power off button on box the machine goes into Hibernation. Startup time from Hibernation is less tha 10 seconds. Also the best programme I've found for checking whats running is autoruns from sysinternals.com.