Beware of msconfig....

I've had disagreements with others on here before about using msconfig to permanently disable startup programs. Microsoft recommend that msconfig is not used to do so, it's only a temporary debugging tool, and that is the position I have always taken. Others on here (and elsewhere) have disagreed with me citing their experiences of using it over the years to permanently disable startup programs with no apparent problems.

Well msconfig has just bitten me, so here's why it's not safe to use it for permanently disabling startup programs.....

I've been doing a factory restore on an HP Pavilion laptop for a friend, these things always comes with stacks of bloatware of course so as part of the factory restore I decided to uninstall the bloatware he didn't need. Immediately after the factory restore I started to get pop-ups from Norton asking to activate the included Norton Security and Norton Online backup software (no thanks). As a workaround before I got round to uninstalling them I disabled them from starting in msconfig to stop the annoying pop ups at every reboot. After a mornings work installing almost 200 Windows updates, copying his user data back and reinstalling all his third party programs I finally got around (as part of the clean up at the end) to uninstalling the bloatware he didn't need (including the two Norton products). The laptop was booting real fast and performing very well before my final clean up, but after it the laptop took an age to boot, disk activity was frantic and even after logon it took an age to get to the desktop.

That's when I realised my error of uninstalling a product (two actually) that were disabled from starting up via msconfig. I rather think the disk thrashing on boot was Windows searching for the disabled (and now uninstalled) programs. Rather than bumble around trying to sort the problem I decided to start again and do another factory reset. This time I left msconfig well alone and uninstalled the two Norton products straight away. The laptop is now performing beautifully.

So, despite the apparent experience of many, it is not safe to use msconfig to permanently disable programs from starting. So there!

I'd probably blame Norton, it has the same effect on your PC as a virus. It hides stuff everywhere and is a pain to get rid of!

Wozza365 said:

I'd probably blame Norton, it has the same effect on you
r PC as a virus. It hides stuff everywhere and is a pain to get rid of!

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I'd agree about Norton but the problem was msconfig, this was exactly why Microsoft tell you not to use it permanently.

I agree with ubuysa on msconfig: it's a temporary tool, nothing more
but i have to say your trouble with norton was probably more related to not uninstalling it as soon as posible
to me your problem highlights something i alwaysexercise myself: first clean then install, and if you plan to delete something do it before installing something new, and this has worked pretty well for me

I'm not going to lie, I tend to use msconfig as a quick and easy way of reducing the bloat running on peoples machines when they complain its running slow. On the rare occasion I do agree to factory reset everything for someone I don't bother with msconfig at all, I just uninstall it before I do anything else so I know im working with an (almost) clean installation. I know its not right but uninstalling everything they have installed over the months would take forever and I really don't feel like spending hours on other peoples machines. (because they tend to be el cheapo machines from Pc world with the slowest HDD's know to have been manufactured.)

So yeah I agree, don't use it as a permanent fix. Though I bet for 99% of people it will work just fine as they will probably forget to uninstall Norton later as they had planned to anyway... I think you got bitten because you bothered to go and uninstall the application you disabled, most people probably wont. But I know exactly where you are coming from.

mantadog said:

I think you got bitten because you bothered to go and uninstall the application you disabled, most people probably wont.

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I agree 100%, that was my mistake.

I also agree that most people won't uninstall, but if you do........

This is something I always tell people who use msconfig to disable processes. ALWAYS re-enable them before you uninstall the software itself. When you disable an item in msconfig it kind of locks the registry key so it can't run or be tampered with, when you then uninstall the program with it disabled that way it leaves the registry key in the system with no program to associate with and causes slow down on boot because it can't find the files it's referencing.

Good to know for systems running 7 or earlier, though something that should be less of an issue with future Windows releases. With 8/8.1, the startup tool within task manager has pretty much rendered the msconfig startup manager redundant to me. To my knowledge it's present in 10 also.

Tom DWC said:

Good to know for systems running 7 or earlier, though something that should be less of an issue with future Windows releases. With 8/8.1, the startup tool within task manager has pretty much rendered the msconfig startup manager redundant to me. To my knowledge it's present in 10 also.

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Yeah that's all I use now on my laptop, still tend to use msconfig for Windows 7, it tends to be for debugging anyway if I have issues and I need to find out which program.

Tom DWC said:

Good to know for systems running 7 or earlier, though something that should be less of an issue with future Windows releases. With 8/8.1, the startup tool within task manager has pretty much rendered the msconfig startup manager redundant to me. To my knowledge it's present in 10 also.

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That's true (about Task Manager) but I'd expect the same issue to be present, so beware of uninstalling any program disabled at startup. I would expect this also to be true with programs disabled via third-party tools like Ccleaner.