# Winword loads itself. Why? How? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 9, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214 "2005-11-09T15:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/1 "2005-11-09T15:28:00Z")
That’s it. Running XP pro. On re-boot and on some other mystery event(s) Word is loading itself without asking. At no point have I explicitly run Word and it’s not in my startup group (or whatever that’s called these days) but there it is in Task Manager. Why does it do this? I can go weeks without using the flipping program so what is it playing at? I could try to Google up an answer but it’s more fun to ask here. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/2 "2005-11-09T15:45:12Z")
> [@](#): > > At no point have I explicitly run Word Ever? Then just uninstall the stupid thing. (Yeah, I know that leaves your curiosity unsated) ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/3 "2005-11-09T15:57:03Z")
How absolute the knave is. OK, at no point _in the current session_ have I explicitly run Word. I used it last week but the box has been rebooted several times since then. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/4 "2005-11-09T15:57:38Z")
Click Start\>Run and type MSCONFIG, then take a look in the Startup tab (there are more ways for a program to be launched at startup than it being in the Startup folder of the Start Menu). ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/5 "2005-11-09T16:01:51Z")
> [@Small Clanger](#): > > That’s it. Running XP pro. On re-boot and on some other mystery event(s) Word is loading itself without asking. At no point have I explicitly run Word and it’s not in my startup group (or whatever that’s called these days) but there it is in Task Manager. Why does it do this? I can go weeks without using the flipping program so what is it playing at? > > I could try to Google up an answer but it’s more fun to ask here. A few possibilities, pretty vague, but worth trying. There are ‘startup keys’ in the windows XP registry, seperate from your startup shortcuts folder… HKEY\_CURRENT\_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run are the main ones. If you’re comfortable at all looking through the windows registry, you could take a look here for anything that might be word-related. Secondly… it’s possible that some program in your startup shortcuts folder (or elsewhere) is calling winword.exe to do some processing task and then not terminating it properly. (Hmm… some kind of spyware program that writes to an MSword log file? 😉 Have you run spybot btw?) preview: hi mangetout!! (goes to take a look at that msconfig thing.) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/6 "2005-11-09T16:08:14Z")
Do you use Outlook? By default some versions of Outlook will use MS Word as an editor if available. Thus WINWORD loads in Processes tab. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/7 "2005-11-09T16:29:47Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > preview: hi mangetout!! (goes to take a look at that msconfig thing.) Thanks **mangetout**! msconfig turned up same other things that were pissing me off. At what point did ituneshelper and qttask decide I wanted them? There’s no explict entry for Word, Outlook is in there (which I want) and OSA (which I don’t). Why don’t these freaking things ask before installing themselves. Dammit. **jrfranchi** Yup, I use Outlook (see above) and on opening a new mail message this is what’s happening. But when I close the editor it leaves Winword in memory (with a footprint five time the size of Outlook) Is that deliberate?. (I don’t expect an answer to that, or at any rate a polite one). ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/8 "2005-11-09T16:32:13Z")
> [@Small Clanger](#): > > msconfig turned up same other things that were pissing me off. At what point did ituneshelper and qttask decide I wanted them? Umm… when Steve Jobs decided that anyone who wanted to install his software should have it ALL THE TIME because it was _just that cool_ ?? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/9 "2005-11-09T16:53:13Z")
> [@Small Clanger](#): > > …snip… > **jrfranchi** Yup, I use Outlook (see above) and on opening a new mail message this is what’s happening. But when I close the editor it leaves Winword in memory (with a footprint five time the size of Outlook) Is that deliberate?. (I don’t expect an answer to that, or at any rate a polite one). WinWord does stay open as Outlook wants to save you time when you want to compose a new Email. I have the opposite usage though. Outlook is 18,323KB and WinWord varies from 2,000 to 10,000 for no reason at all. QTTASK you can remove with MSCONFIG. No sense fighting Winword unless you are having a memory problem. If so I can walk you through turning this off in Outlook. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/10 "2005-11-09T17:25:18Z")
**jr** , qttask and the itunes thingy are gone, I don’t use this stuff. Guess I’m not cool enough. On the Word front things are a little clearer. Outlook starts up Word as its editor. I just tried closing Outlook and it also closed the background Winword that was running, finally something that makes sense. However re-starting Outlook starts up Winword again and I haven’t even looked at any mail yet. Ho hum. This is all academic, there’s plenty of memory in the box. It just niggles that all these helper programs (if you can call a full blown wordprocessor a helper program) install and load themselves without asking the user at any point whether they are wanted. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/11 "2005-11-09T17:32:59Z")
> [@Small Clanger](#): > > **jr** , qttask and the itunes thingy are gone, I don’t use this stuff. Guess I’m not cool enough. > > On the Word front things are a little clearer. Outlook starts up Word as its editor. I just tried closing Outlook and it also closed the background Winword that was running, finally something that makes sense. However re-starting Outlook starts up Winword again and I haven’t even looked at any mail yet. Ho hum. > > This is all academic, there’s plenty of memory in the box. It just niggles that all these helper programs (if you can call a full blown wordprocessor a helper program) install and load themselves without asking the user at any point whether they are wanted. Sounds good to me, I have loved MSCONFIG since the Win 98 days. I use to fine tune Win 3.11 & Dos 6.22 to maxmize Memory in the 640K window. This was a trial and error process and I was overjoyed to have 622K free at my best. Also on a slow 486/33DX from Power on to Win 3.11 being ready was 40 seconds. Ah the Geeky pleasure of it all. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/winword-loads-itself-why-how/330214/12 "2005-11-09T21:22:03Z")
And anyway, if you aren’t using word, then the OS should page it out to disk so it shouldnt affect performance.