Technical Difficulties Questions

[Sonic Glitch]

I have a question regarding my computers behavior and decided to start a thread that can be used for any quick/non-involved question, rather than each of us starting a new thread for minor issues. I'll start.

Should it be taking my barely 2 year old laptop over 3 minutes to boot to the point I can use it?

Also, anyone have any experience with a virus called Startnow and getting rid of it?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Should it be taking my barely 2 year old laptop over 3 minutes to boot to the point I can use it?

No it shouldn't. It could be malware slowing it down or you may have too much loading at startup. In Vista or 7 type 'msconfig' into the search box in the start menu and in the dialog box that pops up go to the "startup" tab and unselect whatever isn't needed. Keep anything that's listed under "Microsoft Corp" as author (e.g., Windows Defender) and your antivirus.

Also, anyone have any experience with a virus called Startnow and getting rid of it?

This specific malware, no. Is it a fake antivirus/hoax(and is this on the laptop noted above)? Running a scan with malwarebytes might be able to clean out the infection; this sort of program often does better than antivirus programs at some sorts of malware.

[Nickswitz]

Also, try and do a run of it in safe mode. Generally that will give you better results because it disallows most malwares from running at start up.

[Sonic Glitch]

Should it be taking my barely 2 year old laptop over 3 minutes to boot to the point I can use it?

No it shouldn't. It could be malware slowing it down or you may have too much loading at startup. In Vista or 7 type 'msconfig' into the search box in the start menu and in the dialog box that pops up go to the "startup" tab and unselect whatever isn't needed. Keep anything that's listed under "Microsoft Corp" as author (e.g., Windows Defender) and your antivirus.

How do I tell what is and isn't needed?

Also, anyone have any experience with a virus called Startnow and getting rid of it?

This specific malware, no. Is it a fake antivirus/hoax(and is this on the laptop noted above)? Running a scan with malwarebytes might be able to clean out the infection; this sort of program often does better than antivirus programs at some sorts of malware.

Fixed it

[Captain Picard's Hair]

How do I tell what is and isn't needed?

In general most things in that particular area are optional. There isn't much danger of messing up your system here since all the critical stuff is handled automatically by the OS. What this list displays includes largely third-party programs which are set to load with Windows. Most of the time you can infer what a particular entry refers to by reading it, though if the entry is cryptic and not recognizable it's probably still safe to uncheck. Whether a particular entry is needed or not may be up to you (provided you understand what program it's referring to) but in general having fewer programs set to launch automatically with Windows results in faster boot times to a usable desktop.

Most of these third-party programs themselves will have a similar checkbox in their own settings panel (where to find it depends on the program in question but you can usually find these sorts of controls in the program's menu under "options" or "properties" or some-such). Looking for such an option may prevent a program from adding itself back to the startup menu the next time it's launched!