Improve OS Loading Speed

very good
key review info
application features
  • Provide security rating and consultative information on the startup programs
  • (8 more, see all...)

How well is your computer running? I bet that in the first two weeks of its activity it ran like a charm: smooth, fast, no errors. But as time passes by, it begins to slow down, booting takes forever (the same happens when shutting it down) and it also stumbles from time to time. The causes are diverse, but one of them is the accumulation of startup items. And this aspect should not be neglected, especially if you bought your system with everything installed on it.

The retailers often install their own softwares and, for marketing purposes, they install a myriad of applications you seldom use and most of them load at startup. These elements that deploy in the background once Windows is loaded often affect the performance of your computer.

One way out of this is to build your own computer from scratch. However, some problems may rise in this case: hardware compatibility issues leading to system instability or inability to function at full capacity. So a niftier solution must be sought. This is not difficult and all you need to do is find a good startup manager to help you eliminate all the processes eating computer resources for nothing.

To give you an example in this sense, I eliminated Adobe Reader from my startup list. The reason is that I use the application too seldom to be worth letting it gulp up the few megabytes it needs. Other applications had the same fate as I used them only now and then and I could afford to wait a few seconds longer when launching them than to allow them to constantly take the resources they needed for the permanent running of the process.

Startup Optimizer is a free solution in this sense, designed to reveal to you the programs and processes that load with your operating system and lead to an overall slowdown of your computer. The developer gave it a very user-friendly, intuitive interface that will give any user the much desired ease of use. The explorer-like look and feel should make employing very comfortable.

The menus and options are placed in the top right hand part of the window and consist in applying whatever changes you have made, refreshing the view of the processes and backing them up, just in case. The right part of the screen also comes with additional editing, stopping, opening and even process deleting options. Adding new processes to be loaded with Windows is a snap. Using the "Add" button and providing the path to the executable should do the trick.

The left hand side of the application window presents the registry locations and the startup menu where the startup elements are residing. Additionally, you can view which items are set to start for the current user (located both in Registry and StartUp menu).

Lower in the window there is the rating system of the application. The color codes represent a very good way to quickly realize if one of the items presents any danger to your system, which of them are not required or which are absolutely necessary for your system. However, I would not trust this rating too much as in my case it placed a "harmful" alert for two applications that cannot possibly endanger the computer: Kaspersky Antivirus and Windows Sidebar. More than that, it labeled one of the most used applications as "Not Required".

In the startup items window (the middle section of the application screen) there are the items loading with Windows. Here, you can see what exactly is slowing the boot or preventing the computer to shut down faster. Clicking on the items brings up the "Program Detail" window showing the name of the program (executable, in fact), the rating, its location on your computer and in the registry, as well as the peak memory usage. To make the identification easier, Startup Optimizer provides a quick link to Google search engine.

Of course, there are specialized websites presenting details about a certain process, but Startup Optimizer simply does not include any of them. A ProcessLibrary link would have been a much better aid for the matter.

A very handy function of the application is "Backup". It allows the user to save different startup configurations and load them at any time. This way, you can load up different configurations and use them when you feel like dumping some startup items. You can create as many backups as you want and add as many items as you want in the list as the software will not object to it at all.

All in all, the software behaved nicely during the testing and did not create any problems. The startup items were identified correctly as well as their locations.

The Good

Startup Optimizer is a free software designed to give you on a platter all the processes that load with your operating system and decide upon their fate.

Handling it is extremely easy and you can create backups for different configurations and load them at any time. Additionally, you can learn some details about the items in the list and even give them a search on Google.

The Bad

The rating system is not to be trusted: Kaspersky, the notorious antivirus, has been stamped with the harmful color code, just like Windows Sidebar (this is understandable as the application was created to run on OSs up to Vista, but still).

The spelling mistakes are not increasing the value of the software either. Also, the 12000+ softwares in the database are clearly not enough to cover the needs of the user (the pictures clearly reveal that Startup Optimizer recognized three out of eleven valid processes running on the testing computer and from these three two innocent applications were declared harmful).

The Truth

As long as you ignore the ratings for different processes, everything is right. It is not as advanced as Starter but it'll get the job done and present the startup items and their place of residence (both command path in the Registry and their location on the hard disk).

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 4
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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