Re: Autoruns

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Thomas A wrote:
Is there any way to know what's safe to disable using autorun program that wont make my PC unstable ... Like a list what to keep and what not to ?

Well you can turn off Microsoft Entries (hide in the options menu), so that should make your OS safe.

Beyond that no. It's impossible for AutoRuns to keep a database of all software available and what you may have installed on your system and then uninstalled (with the uninstalled software not deleting it's own entries from the registry properly or completely), or indeed what 3rd party software is essential at boot-up and what isn't.

It's just a matter of going through the categories in AutoRuns and also looking in Task Manager's Processes list and/or using the similar lists, but with full path info., from the system info. freeware program 'Everest' which you can find and download with a google search and will help you identify which entries belong to which software packages by virtue of the full path.

For identifying processes and entries in AutoRuns and establishing which are safe to turn off, google is your friend. Search on an entry or process name and look at a selection of the results. There are lots of process info. pages which will provide info. on what the process is, does, criticality level, and even wheyher safe to delete or not. Often you will need to look at several pages though to get good info. about a particular process - so it's a long drawn out tedious exercise, but a helpful one to keep your system running tip-top.

Finally don't delete an entry from AutoRuns, just uncheck it so that it is restorable later. Do a reboot and make sure your system is working fine, perhaps even over several days. If your system appears to be working fine for a few hours don't be tempted to use the delete feature in AutoRuns, or you may find a few days later that you've deleted your Anti-Virus's auto-update feature's entry and then you can't restore it which you would have been able to do if you'd just left the entry unchecked rather than deleted!! Delete only those things that you are 100% sure about and by very wary of doing that at all.

Finally - oops, 2nd finally :) - keep notes of what you've done and why, my 'AutoRuns Notes.txt' file has been worth it's file size in gold on several occasions and stopped me repeatedly looking up what a particular entry actually is/does from one month to the next. After all how is anyone supposed to remember that RTHDCPL.exe is part of my sound card's setup? A note in my text file and ... ignore that, it's fine, what's next...

HTH.
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