# The hamsters ate my post, so I'll try again: Getting rid of programs at start up **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2004, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481 "2004-03-10T13:50:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/1 "2004-03-10T13:50:18Z")
Funny, I saw that the post went through, but then I checked and got 107 views with no reply, and I saw that the hamsters were hungry. So, take two: The following programs are on our home computer at start up. Ivylad has to manually Ctrl Alt Del each of them separately before he can play Morrowind. What are they, can we get rid of them forever, and how do we get rid of them forever? Explorer (we have Comcast High Speed, if this makes a difference) Lucom server Ccapp Loadgm Webshottray Hgps2waf Directcd Hpgcom Icfeatures Rundll Wjview Motmon Hidserv Systray Winmgmt Osd Hp2t603 Delayrun Wkufind ---
**Author:** ![dylan\_73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/2 "2004-03-10T14:40:51Z")
Depending on your OS, msconfig (Start…Run…msconfig) should give you a list of stuff you can disable. Regarding your list, [this list](http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm) probably lists them all. Very useful site, you may want to bookmark it. ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/3 "2004-03-10T14:43:19Z")
You might try WinPatrol, mentioned by [PCWorld](http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22728,00.asp). WinPatrol is free; a plus version is available for $19.95. ---
**Author:** ![DoubleJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@DoubleJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoubleJ)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/4 "2004-03-10T14:43:25Z")
Well, your computer probably needs at least a few of those to run and be stable. Explorer is the GUI; when you kill it you should see the desktop icons and the menu bar disappear and reappear. If you CTRL-ALT-DEL again you’ll see another instance of it running. Likewise, Systray just displays the icons in the system tray (or does it just provide the tray for the icons to use?) and probably restarts itself when you kill it. To get a little more IMHO-ish, I wouldn’t recommend killing anything via the Task Manager unless a program freezes up; right-click and exit programs running in the systray if you need to free up some memory. It’s not the cheapest option out there, but I’d suggest buying more RAM. You can get a 128-meg DIMM pretty cheaply (I’m assuming that your computer’s at least a couple years old and thus takes DIMMs). If your problem is that one of those programs is causing instability, then I really can’t help you; I’m not an IT type. ---
**Author:** ![fluffball86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@fluffball86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluffball86)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/5 "2004-03-10T14:44:30Z")
run **MSConfig** , and the third tab should be start up programs or something. There will be a list of check boxes. Uncheck the check boxes that are to the left of programs that don’t need to be running. I had a bunch of programs associated with my printer (that is disconnected) and keyboard (so that I can use the special keys) that I unchecked. Only uncheck programs that you know what they do! when you click okay, you will have to restart your computer. You can deal with the other items on a trial and error basis. Also, when you do the ctrl alt del thing, the only programs that need to be running are explorer, systray, and your virus etc scanner. But control alt del ing the othing things can sometimes make your system unstable, so trial and error is needed here too. ---
**Author:** ![dylan\_73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/6 "2004-03-10T14:49:39Z")
I forgot: if you want to kill lots of processes at once, get [pstools](http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/13/7/13-7-61.shtml). pskill will let you kill a load of stuff at once. WARNING: It sends a real kill signal. This means you won’t get a warning if you try to kill a system process, it will just end it. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/7 "2004-03-10T14:57:20Z")
If you are not certain which programs to turn off and which to leave, [this site](http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm) has a large database of common startup programs, what they do and their relative importance. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hamsters-ate-my-post-so-ill-try-again-getting-rid-of-programs-at-start-up/233481/8 "2004-03-10T17:30:35Z")
Thanks, guys!!