Neil said:
I would like to be able to control the order in which WinXP (32b)
loads the various programs set to load at startup. I have tried
various utilities that I have found on the web and none of them that
I have found are successful at actually controlling the load order.
Can this be done from within XP? I have looked at the MSCONFIG
settings in the registry and there does not seem to be a way to
define load order.
Thanks in advance for any help/advice,
Neil H.
SC gave you probably the closest you can come with XP to controlling
that natively and especially the second link is informative. There ARE
some 3rd party apps that claim to do this too but I'd like to point
someting out to you.
Delay Starts are pretty good ways and the only realistic thing you
can do. BUT ... realize that, if you are going by the appearance of the
icons in the systray or onscreen hints:
-- Various things take longer than others to get fully started.
-- Thus, getting a particular task to start first does not mean it
will be the first to be completely loaded and ready to use, especially
if it takes it a long time because it has a lot of work to do. AV is
often something people are concerned about this way.
-- The ones to finish loading first are generally the smaller, faster
programs, regardless of whether they start first or much later in the
process. Many programs are trying to load in parallel during boot so
the shorter ones have a decided advantage of being up and ready first.
-- Appearance of the icon doesn't mean the program is fully initiated.
It simply means the program tossed up the icon for the systray.
So, it's when they FINISH loading that's important in most, not all,
cases. BUT, take AV for instance; it starts to load early in the
process but is one of the last to display its icon. However, it's
begining to do its job long before you see the icon. Cetain protection
mechanisms load first; all the gui and nicety stuff loads last. But
it's protecting you before you see the icon appear.
Unfortunately I can't find any of the links I got this info from so I
can't include links for verification; sorry.
HTH,
Twayne