Startcleaner

Startcleaner is a lightweight and portable application you can use to manage programs that automatically run every time you boot your computer. To be more specific, it gives you the possibility to delete the entries of those software products you rarely or never use, in order to reduce impact on machine performance and contribute to a faster boot time.

Without resorting to third-party utilities, this task can be easily achieved by running the Windows System Configuration Utility ("msconfig.exe" in "Run"). However, Startcleaner provides a more user-friendly interface, which especially comes in handy for those with no previous experience in startup managers.

The interface is represented by a large window with a simple design and neatly structured layout, which gives you an overview of all options put at your disposal. The autostart entries are automatically detected and shown in a list at startup.

You can check out their names, location in the Registy Editor, along with the full file paths. By clicking on an entry and the "Delete" button, the corresponding application is immediately removed from the OS autorun sequence.

This process is irreversible (without resorting to alternative software apps) and there is no confirmation message, so you should be careful not to accidentally remove the entries of tools you actually want to run every time you fire up Windows, such as an antivirus product.

There are no additional options implemented, not even a right-click menu. For example, it's not possible to open an entry's location in Registry Editor or Windows Explorer.

The entire program's packed in a single .exe file that can be saved anywhere on the disk or copied to a removable storage unit, in order to directly run it on any PC with as little effort as possible. It doesn't create files on the disk or need DLLs or other components to run.

It worked smoothly in our tests, without affecting the computer's performance. System resources usage was minimal. Although it doesn't have richer options, Startcleaner offers a simple solution for removing autorun entries from Windows, and it can be easily used.