How to Stop Programs from Launching Automatically When You Boot Up

Whenever you boot up your PC, do you have a program that automatically launches? Do you want to stop it from doing that but haven't figured out how? Most good programs will have options that determine how they behave when Windows starts up on an options or settings page. Other programs may not give you the option to disable them.

In most cases, you can find the annoying program being started under one of the keys in the registry. To change it, follow the instructions below.

NOTE: We recommend always backing up the registry before making any changes. Run the program RegEdit. You can sometimes find this under the Start menu, or you can launch it by choosing the Run command, typing in RegEdit and hitting the key.

Choose the Find command under the Edit menu, and locate the following keys in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion \Run

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion \RunServices

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion \Run

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion \RunServices

Usually the offending program will be in one of these locations. Simply delete the specific key to the program, save your changes, and restart your PC.

How to Stop Programs from Launching Automatically When You Boot Up