Do you like customization? I know I do. Inside the Windows Operating System you have the power to develop your machine to your liking. Do you need to setup a scheduler? How about customizing what programs can startup when you begin windows? Or, determining what you want to do with folders?

Being in the Information Technology Industry, as you could imagine, I have come across some interesting problems. Some problems can even leave you pondering, ‘Am I really the King of this thing, or is it the King of me?’

NOTE: Be careful when customizing certain features of your Operating System unless you know that it is not completely necessary for the successful running of your computer.

NOTE: The Operating System that I will be using is Windows 7.

Configuring Startup Programs Using ‘MSCONFIG’

The first thing that you will need to do when configuring startup files will be to startup your ‘Microsoft Configuration Utility’. This can be called ‘msconfig’ for short. You can find your computers msconfig utility by clicking on your start menu icon and typing msconfig in your ‘search programs and files’ text box find at the bottom of the menu (See example).

You can also use the search box to find other files and folders that you want to see—fast—without having to dig through the mounds of files and remember which folder that you put your document in.

But I digress! I suppose that you have already found the search box and have already hit ‘enter’ on your keyboard to find this next screen.

Here is your Microsoft System Configuration (msconfig) utility. Typically when you open this utility it will open to the ‘General’ tab but for the sake of space and time I have opted to click on my ‘Startup’ tab. With this utility you can configure how your computer starts up, what services you want to be automatically started with windows, and you also have access to some other behind the scenes tools that you can use to customize and monitor windows.

Click the ‘Startup’ tab to view your current startup programs. From this menu you can check and uncheck which startup programs you want to enable and disable. In the above example, I can tell that I can turn off Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, QuickTime, KACE, Quick Finder, and the items from McAfee, Inc. by unchecking the box to the left without affecting the essential functions of my Operating System.

When you have completed unchecking the programs that you would like to turn off from startup select ‘Apply’ and then click ‘OK’.

 You will then receive this message that gives you the options to either ‘restart’ or ‘exit without restart’. In order for your changes to take effect you will need to restart your computer. When your computer restarts, depending on what programs you have chosen to remove from your startup menu, you should notice it getting to a usable state quicker. There are a few other things that you can do to startup windows a little faster but we can save those solutions for another post. I hope that you find this post interesting and usable. I will continue this issue at a later time in a different post.

Reminder Note: Only remove services and features that you know will not hinder the functionality of your system. Some files that are used during startup are necessary for windows to start correctly.

In case something goes wrong and you cannot startup your computer successfully without a blue screen error message or some other failure follow these next set of instructions. Upon startup tap F8 continuously even when you do not see anything on the screen to open your ‘Advanced Startup’ menu. From this menu you will see the option for safe made, debugging mode, normal mode, and last known good configuration. Select the ‘last known good configuration’ from this menu to start windows in the last configuration that worked. This will fix a problem or error that has just occurred.

Enjoy and have fun!

Peace, Love, and Christ ‘cause you know He died for you!