One of the things one finds when they start learning more about Windows is that Microsoft has hidden a lot of little utilities into Windows that are quite useful. I say hidden…well, they are there, but the only way to use them is to call them manually using the Run option in your start menu. One such utility is msconfig, or the Microsoft System Configuration Utility. To run this, go to the Start Menu | Run and type “msconfig” at the command line. Upon launching the utility, you will see options to control some of your key Windows INI files. But, most relevant to today’s tip is the Startup tab. This tab will show you a list of all programs which are set to launch when you boot up Windows. Some are set to launch because they are in your Startup group in your Start Menu. Others are called upon in your registry and you would not know they were starting up unless you used a utility such as this. To disable any program from starting automatically, simply uncheck the program and save your changes. You will need to do a restart before the changes will take effect.