Interesting article, although a little brave (crazy?) suggesting your readers tinker with the registry even if it is backed up!

I’d suggest also doing a “Selected Branch” backup as well as the whole registry, that way you can restore just the part you tinkered with rather than lots of other settings that may well have been changed intentionally by other applications.

You might also like to check out LazyLoad (http://www.LazyLoad.com) as another means of altering your Windows Startup. With LazyLoad you move applications you don’t want starting up immediately with Windows to the LazyLoad list, these can then be disabled or started at a delayed time and restored easily should you wish to have the app start with Windows.

Whilst LazyLoad is Shareware it still works after the 30 day trial but loads all the enabled programs immediately like Windows would have done so you can still use it to disable application loading and have an easy way to restore them should you find you need that application loaded at Startup.

BTW – you can also add programs and tasks not normally run at Windows startup easily with the LazyUtilities in LazyLoad (such as wake another computer, lock the workstation, send a Twitter tweet etc.).

Rich – if you’d like to give it a try I’d be more than happy to send you a licence key so your not constrained to the 30 day trial – just drop me an email.