Removing startup programs from Windows XP - the manual method to speed the start up
Manually removing Windows startup programs is relatively easy and straight-forward and helps speed up the start up. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial showing you how to do it.
1. Once your computer’s desktop has loaded, click on the start button and then the “Run” button on the right side of the menu.
2. After you have clicked on “Run”, a new window should popup - type in “msconfig” without the quotes and hit the “Ok” button.
3. Yet another window will pop up - this is the System Configuration Utility. You’re going to want to click on the “Startup” tab on the far right side.
At this point, you’ll see the location where you can add or remove startup programs from your PC.
You can see the Startup program name in the left column, the physical path to the file that is being executed when your computer boots up in the middle and the location within the registry where this command is stored in the right column.
4. When you have completed your removal of unnecessary startup entries, click on the “Apply” button and then “OK” at the bottom of the System Configuration Utility.
You’ll have to reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.