Portable Startup Sentinel

Once the computer boots, Windows starts a set of programs that are loaded at startup. This can make your computer run slower than usual and it might take a bit before it is ready for you to use. That is where Portable Startup Sentinel comes in, as it provides a quick and easy method to manage startup programs.

As its name suggests, this is the install-free counterpart of Startup Sentinel. When using the portable edition, the registry of the host computer is not affected and, what is more, the application can be used on the go, directly from a removable drive, without having to go through an installation process.

Working with Portable Startup Sentinel is highly intuitive. The main window comprises a list of all the programs configured to launch once the OS is loaded, all neatly organized in a table where you can see their location, names and the commands that start them.

You can easily browse through this list to find items that should not be there or, more frequently, items that are suspicious and might betray the presence of malware on your PC.

By right-clicking on any of the entries in the list, you open a menu that allows you to send the application to the blacklist, the whitelist or simply remove it from the startup sequence. You have options to execute the launch command on the spot. Plus, you can quickly perform an online search of the respective process to see if the online community signals it as malicious.

Portable Startup Sentinel is capable of automatically detecting new items that are added to your startup. Moreover, it gives you more control over the startup sequence, as it allows you to block items that you find suspicious or do not recognize, and approve those that you consider to be safe. 

With Portable Startup Sentinel, you get to create a blacklist and a whitelist, but controlling the startup sequence fully is not possible. What would really add to its value is an option to delay some startup applications to make the computer run smoother once the operating system is up and running, an option that other similar application do have.