Startup programs

Could someone pass on a request to the Longhorn team?  I've recently been working on stopping a few unwanted programs from running at login.  Quicktime has its little application that always runs, and it really isn't needed, I'm very tempted to just uninstall Apple, but then I won't be able to play the stray .mov file.  It is a real PITA to have to remember all the different locations in the registry (or even the fact that I'm hacking the registry, for that matter), so could they make a quick program to delete entries there, and in all the other places?  Nothing fancy, just a quick tool to list the current values in the startup folder (in the start menu), the 6 or 7 registry key folders, and win.ini would be great.

I'm pretty sure that this problem will be less of a problem with Longhorn and the LUA. Microsoft is pushing for applications to store configuration data and the like in the Documents and Settings folder, as opposed to writting to the registry. Also, if applications are running under the LUA, wouldn't that mean they wouldn't be able to ensure that they start up automatically?

Yeah, thats true.  Its one of my bigger gripes against Windows in general.  I just wish that Apple would have made QT install its little auto-start thing to the startup folder.

I was hoping that Microsoft could just make the startup folder a reflection of the run registry directory (or whatever you call it) then have a sub section of sorts to reflect the runonce registry directory. And you could only add an entry to the startup folder via the registry making LUA's secure againest bad programs. (Unless "run by" the admin account).

Just a wish.
Loadsgood.

You can use Microsoft Antispyware to block or get rid of all those startup entries. It can even tell you what some of them are if you're not sure.

Just run MSCONFIG.

I think Longhorn does already include this feature. There is a startup applications tab on the system properties advanced dialog.

Applications running under LUA can still make themselves start up automatically. They can place themselves in either the local users startup folder, or in the HKCU run registry key.

Quicktime actually has a setting in the preferences somewhere to disable the tray icon.

Sven Groot wrote:

Quicktime actually has a setting in the preferences somewhere to disable the tray icon.

...but it still leaves qttask.exe in the list, the program just quits as soon as it loads.

eddwo wrote:

Applications running under LUA can still make themselves start up automatically. They can place themselves in either the local users startup folder, or in the HKCU run registry key.

I believe that the LUA will prevent applications from making permanant changes to the registry. I don't remember the exact privileges that an application running under the LUA will have, but I do remember something about a copy of the registry being made when an application in the LUA attempts to modify the registry. This prevents damaging/malicious changes from being made to the registry.

It may even be that applications under the LUA only have access to one folder, and its sub-directories, in the Documents and Settings/Application Data folder. I could be wrong though.

AFAIK, LUAs have Read Access to the entire registry, but only Read/Write Access to HKCU

W3bbo wrote:

AFAIK, LUAs have Read Access to the entire registry, but only Read/Write Access to HKCU

That's a normal limited user, yes.

But the IE team has been talking about LUA technology in Longhorn that apparently gives individual applications even less access rights. See here.

DoomBringer wrote:

It is a real PITA to have to remember all the different locations in the registry (or even the fact that I'm hacking the registry, for that matter), so could they make a quick program to delete entries there, and in all the other places?  Nothing fancy, just a quick tool to list the current values in the startup folder (in the start menu), the 6 or 7 registry key folders, and win.ini would be great.

What you want is Autoruns from Sysinternals.

Tried Quicktime Alternative? http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm

Aslo Realtime Alternative is nice, you find it at the same site

Depends on your needs of course, they don't support everything from Apple and Realnetworks. But at least I'm perfectly fine with only the alternative versions

(A little digression from the original topic)

BruceMorgan wrote:

DoomBringer wrote: It is a real PITA to have to remember all the different locations in the registry (or even the fact that I'm hacking the registry, for that matter), so could they make a quick program to delete entries there, and in all the other places?  Nothing fancy, just a quick tool to list the current values in the startup folder (in the start menu), the 6 or 7 registry key folders, and win.ini would be great.

What you want is Autoruns from Sysinternals.

I've never used Autoruns, but I've liked Startup.cpl from Mike Lin.  Probably does the same stuff. 

I did look long and hard, though, for a way to get MSFT Anti-Spyware to not allow qttask.exe, but it seems to happily allow it.

I'm just guessing here, but it could be because of the anti-trust issues.  If you try to disable a competitors program, that could be bad.

At least in the EU

This is from someone in the Microsoft AntiSpyware newsgroups who has been annoyed also by Quicktime.

Actually... I got sick of it. I went into the application folder to snoop around.

QTTask.exe is not REQUIRED to run QT... So I just deleted it, lol. QT still works and I'm
done with that damned QTTASK!

Worth a try.