Windows 7: Programs in the Startup Folder

This is Windows 7 HP 64 bit. I have 4 apps in the Startup menu according to Start Programs. However I don't believe 3 of them are actually starting up. The reason I say this is I do not see any evidence of them in Task Manager and also another app that depends on one of them starting is not operating correctly until I start one of these apps manually.
According to Sysinternals Autoruns the path where the lnk files for these three startups are located is C:\Users\Bernard\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
where Bernard is the userid the system starts under. I have verified that the lnk files are actually in this directory.
Can anyone think of a reason why these apps may not be starting at boot time?

Maybe prevented by a policy in gpedit, they may need to be delayed start up items, or any of another dozen. What apps are they?

Ken

They are pretty standard apps - Speedfan, HP Digital Imaging Monitor and Quickbooks Update Agent. The one that I'm particularly interested in is Speedfan because that feeds cpu temp data to a gadget I run, and this data does not appear until I start Speedfan manually. However I don't believe any of them are starting - I have only one user defined on the system and I haven't modified any policies - to the best of my knowledge.

Hello Bernard,

Are these elevated programs that require UAC permission from you to run?

If so, then you may need to run these elevated programs from a startup task instead of through the normal startup programs.

Task - Create to Run a Program at Startup and Log On

Hope this helps,
Shawn

You could be right Shawn, the Speedfan one certainly comes up with the UAC prompt and that's the one I would like to get working - the other two are less important. I'll take a look at your instructions and give them a try. Thanks.
Bernard

You're welcome. Please let us know how it turns out.

It worked a treat Shawn, so thank you very much for your help.
Any idea why this is needed - I was expecting it to come up with the UAC prompt from the startup menu if it was needed, especially since it was being executed from the same user as if I had clicked on it from the desktop - I guess I'm never going to understand the ins and outs of UAC. I can't help but feel Microsoft got the end user interface just a tiny bit wrong with this feature (even though its an awful lot better than under Vista).
Anyway, many thanks once again.
Bernard

That's great news Bernard.

It was to increase security, added back in Vista SP2, so that elevated programs could not run at startup with full access to everything. Since you would have to manually add a elevated program as a task with UAC permission to open Task Scheduler, it is allowed to run at startup using this method. A malware program, for example, could add itself automatically to the normal startup programs list with no permission from you needed and have full controll over the computer the next time you started/restarted the computer without this security feature.

It's a bit more work to make elevated programs to run at startup with this security feature, but we'll be a lot more secured for it.

Thanks for the explanation - I follow your logic, and I didn't think it used to work this way in Vista so thanks for covering that as well.
Being a grumpy old user I guess I get a bit frustrated by these things - its a bit like banks, the government and virtually any organisation one has to deal with these days wanting to know your inside leg measurement before they will do a thing for you. I mean we get so much senseless hassle all over the place were the good guys get to put in all the effort - don't you think a better interface would have been to have asked for the UAC prompt when something is put into the special Startup folder - then it would be obvious that it was needed and folks like me wouldn't have been scratching their heads wondering why something appeared to have worked but in fact didn't work at all - I mean there was no indication the program was not getting started - I just happened to notice it!
Anyway that's not your problem, but thanks for the help - much appreciated.
Bernard

You're welcome. Yeah, it would be nice for a easier way.