Wotan is punishing me for buying a Compaq. I know, I know, buying from Hewlett-Packard is itself a punishment, but evidently he’s still pissed.
Anyway…my hard drive got goobered earlier this week and I had to reformat and reinstall everything. Being a good boy I had my system disks and original software easily at hand, and my last backup was the day before the crash, so all that was no big deal.
Except that the goddamn computer keeps asking me to register with Compaq.
I’ve gone through the process several times. I filled in all the intrusive information with the usual bullshit (spamcatcher email address and so forth) and it seemed to work as fine, but still the "Register Please’ box comes up every hour or so. I don’t see anything in the startup programs monitor from Windows defender that could be causing it, but of course I’m sure the manufacturer could have put it somewhere sneaky. Thoughts?
Start – run – type msconfig. Somewhere in the startup tab is probably an HP registration wizard that is throwing this thing. Just a matter of hunting it down. Many of them are obvious what they are, you will probably be looking for something with HP and or register in the name.
That can’t be it, as it was my first thought after checking Defender. The only istems in the startup tabe are Windows Defender, the Synaptics utility that runs the touchpad, a few intel items and one from Java, and the HP Wireless Assistants. The HP items are already disabled.
I know this is advice that is often dismissed based on previous experience with the customer service systems of other companies, but have you called Compaq? They always treated me well.
The laptop’s out of warranty. I can’t see them helping. Plus I hate them with such vehemence that even typing the words Compaq or Hewlett-Packard causes me to break out in hives.
Hm, buried registry entries don’t launch programs every hour on the hour, there’s definitely a daemon or program running in the background… it’s just a matter of checking which program it is, and stopping it from ever starting up again (and that might involve some registry diving)
Next time the register box comes up, open up the task manager and try to see which process is using up some of the CPU. Click around the register box to make it do something, and observe the results.
Isolate, end the process, and see if it goes away temporarily. At that point, you’ll know what the offending application/daemon is.
Use Autoruns from SysInternals (owned by Microsoft now). It’s a free utility and it will bring up everything that is starting automatically, no matter where it’s buried.
BTW be prepared to be bowled over by the real number of autoruns on your system, not just the ones msconfig shows. SysInternals rocks. They have dozens of these small utilities that show what’s going on under the hood of your computer.
Ok, out of curiosity I did this. Now my question is what does one do with the absolute deluge of data that is reported by the program? There must be over 500 items in the list, most of them providing absolutely no clue about what their purpose is. I went to their website, but found it to be of no help whatsoever (maybe if I were a complete computer geek it would be intellgible, but I’m only an average joe who has been using computers for only 25 years or so).
My first impression is that if my pore ole computer was really loading all those items at startup it would take weeks to get going, not the few minutes it does take.
I don’t know the answer to that question, but here is something to mull over. The computer in my office starts up and shuts down almost instantly. My laptop (which is newer and presumably faster) takes just short of forever to start up and recently won’t shut down at all (this means I have to stop it by hand and then it starts in “safe” mode). The thing is that the one in my office originally came with Linux and when I gave up on that, I bought a new copy of MS Windows-XP (from MS, itself, BTW; my son works there). Clearly it is the lack of junkware that explains the difference in startup speed.
That is the only computer I “own” that still has original installation disks. Otherwise all I get are instructions to make emergency restart diskettes. On the one occasion I tried one it didn’t work. It was supposedly corrupted, although I had made it using a test after burning option. Fortunately, I buy my machines from a local vendor and he can fix any problem of that sort. He charges more, but the peace of mind is worth it. Especially since its not my money anyway (comes from research grants).
Compaq laptops don’t come with installation discs, but you do have the option of making one and only set for yourself. I did so soon after buying mine–after cursing Compaq/HP first,of course.
SysInternal utilities are admittedly designed for power users but the average joe can also take advantage of them You don’t need to know what everything does. You must remember that Autoruns is showing you everything that starts automatically when your computer boots up, that includes Services, drivers, winsock providers, dlls, as well as the surface programs that msconfig shows.
Most of the stuff shown in the list should NOT be touched. You really can render your computer useless by unticking some of the core Windows items. I can’t emphasize that enough. But it’s ideal for tracking down any autostart that’s bugging the hell out of you, it should be easy to identify it.
Check out this thread on the SysInternals forum, particularly the fourth post down, for advice on what can be safely unchecked and what should be left to experts.
Thanks, aldiboronti. However, after checking that link, I think I’ll be lots safer to just go with good ole msconfig. Unless I try autorun after three or four martinis.
