I have skimmed over info on these to apps and they 'appear' similar. I have not found 'recent' discussion here on these two and want to know a)major difference and b)under what conditions do I need one or the other.
-thank you
WinPatrol is more of a security application compared to Autoruns. WinPatrol takes a "snapshot" of your critical system resources, actively monitors those resources, and alerts you if any changes occur. Autoruns shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them, and a full list of Registry and file system locations available for auto-start configuration.
WinPatrol can possibly alert you to system changes due to malware as they happen. Autoruns may list possible malware that runs during system bootup or login but doesn't necessarily flag it as malware and leaves it up to you to figure out if it's malware or not. Here's a chart showing what WinPatrol can do (both the free and paid versions) and a summary of how Autoruns can be used.
WinPatrol FREE vs PLUS
Autoruns for Windows
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