Disabling Startup Programs In Windows Vista Using Windows Defender
I recently installed Adobe Photoshop Elements on to my computer to assist with things like graphics and screenshots for my site. However along with Photoshop, Adobe also downloaded a little program called Adobe Photo Downloader. Its a relatively harmless bit of software meant to assist with downloading photos from a digital camera. Still its something I don’t use and I don’t want programs I don’t use to be running in the background and taking up resources.
I’m going to show how to disable the startup programs using Windows Defender. Previously with Windows XP you would do this by running a utility in windows called msconfig.exe (msconfig is still present in Vista and you can run it by typing “msconfig” in search bar built into your start menu)
Step 1. Open up Windows Defender
You can find Windows Defender by opening the control panel and clink on “Security”. Windows Defender is one of the options in the next screen. Or you could simply type in “Defender” or “Windows Defender” in Vista’s start menu search.
Step 2. Open up Software Explorer
Windows Defenders main purpose is an Antispyware program so this screen is mostly related to that. Click on “tools”.
Select “Software Explorer”. From here you will be able to manage the startup programs.
Step 3. Show for all users
If you are running as an limited user you will not be able to make any changes to the startup programs. So in order to disable startup programs you will need to push the “Show for all users” button. This will trigger a UAC prompt. This will also apply the setting to all other accounts. Often you will need to push the button as an administrator (because as we all know running as an admin on Vista is not really running as an admin).
Step 4. Disable Programs
Go down the list and disable all the programs you don’t want to run at startup. Be sure that “Startup Programs” is the selected category.
