StartEd Lite

Some applications get automatically integrated into the Windows autostart sequence after installing them, which means that they run by default every time you turn on the computer. While this is beneficial in some cases, like anti-malware programs that must launch their real-time engines to protect you from incoming malware, it's harmful in other situations when the PC boot time is decreased because of too many autolaunch apps.

When this happens, it's time to take matters into your own hands, figure out which programs you wish to keep in the autostart lineup and which ones you want to prevent from deploying their processes automatically. If you don't know how to work with the built-in autorun manager of Windows or are simply not comfortable with it, you can turn to third-party apps like StartEd Lite.

This is the free edition of StartEd Pro, a comprehensive app that facilitates a user-friendly interface for managing autorun programs. It autodetects the applications in question and displays their entries in a neatly structured list at startup, where you can examine their names, paths, startup types, and file sizes.

The entries are color-coded so you can tell apart obsolete entries (no longer pointing to valid files), new apps, essential processes (like those crucial to the system's runtime) as well as Trojan horses (depending on the anti-malware capabilities of StartEd Lite). Any item can be removed from the list via the right-click menu while new processes can be added with minimum effort.

In addition to autorun programs, you can take a look at the autorun services to view their names, startup types, status, notes, descriptions, dependencies, and paths. This requires a bit of expertise, though. Similar to the autorun apps, StartEd Lite reveals color-coded entries to highlight obsolete, safe to disable, new, important, very important and essential services, along with Trojan horses. The startup type can be modified, and the services can be stopped, started, restarted, paused and resumed.

Additional features can be explored in StartEd Pro, such as backups and restore points. The free edition had minimal impact on the computer's performance in our tests and carried out tasks swiftly, without error. However, it doesn't bring anything new to the table when taking into account the range of functionalities offered by other similar software.