Startup programs not starting on boot

[MightyDrake]

Win 7 Pro 64

I've seen some other threads on this, and I've been searching the 'Net for a couple of days. But I haven't found a solution, yet.

Starting a couple of weeks ago, (around Aug 3) I booted and noticed that a bunch of programs didn't start with Windows as they should. I'm pretty sure the only change that had happened since the prior boot was a Windows Update. Since I was in the middle of something for work, I decided to try a System Restore. That worked, so I put off researching the problem until I had more time. Then, a few days later, a new update came down that installed itself. In addition, it threw away the previous Restore Point. So, no going back, now. I limped along like that for a few days. Then, for no reason I can find, for two boots it worked perfectly. Then, another update, and it's back to not working. I fought with it for a few days when it started working for another few boots. Then, back to not working. So, it's intermittent, and the last 10 or 15 boots have been failures.

Running the programs manually works. No UAC warnings or anything like that.

In addition to none of the programs in my Startup folder starting, when I bring up the Task Manager immediately after a boot, only about 15 processes are running. Normally, there's more than a screen-full. So, I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of other things that are not getting fired off, too.

There are some things that are running. Under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Run I see some items that are running and some that are not. Actual Multiple Monitors, GFI Backup, and Input Director are running and visible in the System Tray. AutoVer, Steam, and WallpaperChanger are not running. I just searched Autoruns for every mention of Actual Multiple Monitors and do not see anyplace else that would fire it off (it's mentioned in a context menu handler.) After a quick skim, it appears that all of the services are starting.

This system has been running under Avast. I downloaded Malwarebytes and ran a full scan. It did not find anything. I ran HijackThis and pored over the log, and recognized or searched to find everything. Per a suggestion on the Tom's Hardware forum I ran the Kaspersky Rescue Disk, and nothing found. I ran sfc /scannow. No errors. The items do show up in msconfig, and they are checked. I downloaded Autoruns http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us [...] 63902.aspx and they show there, too. I looked in Event Viewer, and nothing jumps out at me, there. I do *not* see a slew of messages telling me about things that didn't run.

It occurred to me that Windows acts as though it thinks the Shift key is being held down. I had just added a new wireless keyboard and a new wireless mouse a couple of weeks before all this started. I thought maybe there might be interference. But, I tried a few different keyboards (including one wired) and two different mice, and none made a difference. I tried unplugging every USB device except for one keyboard and one mouse. I reconsidered the Shift key thing when I realized I'm *not* seeing stuck shift key behavior anywhere else in Windows.

Is there any way to get Windows to tell me if it thinks the Shift key is being held down? Or, some other way to get it to tell me which programs it wants to try to run and which it's bypassing?

I'm hoping I don't have to reinstall Windows. It would take a while to get everything installed and configured, again. And, the fact that it does occasionally work tells me that it *can* work.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to look next?

Thanks,

Drake Christensen

 

[gregrocker]

It's best to run a Clean Boot anyway to keep the freeloaders at bay. Uncheck everything except your AV in msconfig>Startup and >Services after hiding all MS Services.

I'd also give it a good going over with Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

 

[MightyDrake]

It's best to run a Clean Boot anyway to keep the freeloaders at bay. Uncheck everything except your AV in msconfig>Startup and >Services after hiding all MS Services.

I'd also give it a good going over with Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

Freeloaders? Is that the term here for Possibly Unwanted Programs? That doesn't apply in this case. This machine didn't have any shovelware installed originally, and all the programs I'm running at startup are the ones I've chosen to run. As I said, I have the machine configured pretty much the way I want it. It's a personal preference thing.

Just as a bit of added info, I'm running Memtest86+ v4.20. It had made it 86% through when I bumped the Esc key. Doh! I'm gonna go ahead and let it run again. But, chances are, if the problem were failing memory then it probably would have shown up already.

I plan on testing the hard drive, too. Is there a current favorite non-destructive hard drive test program?

I'll take a look at that troubleshooting guide. Who knows, maybe I've missed something simple and obvious. It's been known to happen.

While I'm doing that, I want people to feel free to continue with suggestions. Are there any diagnostic tools that illuminate the boot process that I haven't mentioned in my original post?

Drake

 

[gregrocker]

Drake -

What programs need to start up with Windows and cannot wait to run until you want to use them?

The risk involved here is that almost all of them take advantage of Startup status to spy on you since the information is valuable for the company to use or sell.

I consider anything other than the AV and gadgets/stickies which must run at Startup to be a freeloader. In Win7 nothing else is needed to run at boot for any performance advantage, instead detracting from performance.

 

[MightyDrake]

Um. Wow. I hardly know how to answer that. It sounds like you're calling me a fool for running anything besides an anti-virus program. Apparently I need to justify my choices.

I listed a few examples in my original post. I'm running GFI Backup. It takes several hours. I don't know why. Therefore, I'm currently trying out two Apple Time Machine-like programs called Autover and Genie Timeline. I'm trying to decide which I like for myself and which I think would want to recommend to my mom. I'm using a program called InputDirector which allows me to "move the mouse cursor" onto the other machine on my desk and control it from my main keyboard and mouse, but on the other monitor. I run Actual Multiple Monitors to make the taskbar behave on the multiple monitors on my main machine in a way that makes much more sense to me than the standard Windows behavior. And so on.

I'm also running Seti@Home. Just because I think it's geeky-cool.

You may need every single CPU cycle and byte of memory your computer has to get things done during your day. But I've got a quad-core CPU running at 3 GHz with 8 gig of RAM. I don't mind squandering a little for a few programs, some of which are convenient and some are completely frivolous.

I researched the programs before installing them. None have obtrusive nor annoying adware nor malware behavior. (During this exercise I went looking for a free program to install on another machine to burn an ISO. All of the former popular ones had great big warnings about obnoxious junk bundled with them.)

As I said, it's a personal preference thing. I could live without most of them, but I choose not to. Mostly, I like the choices I've made, though sometimes I do reevaluate (as in my backup example.) And, this setup has been running fine for two and half years.

But something has cropped up a few weeks ago. The fact that it's so specific, and that it intermittently works gives me hope that when I finally track it down it's going to be something fairly simple to fix. I just need to find the right diagnostic tools to tell me what Windows is up to.

So, back to my issue.

I skimmed the link to the troubleshooting page. I have done or was in the process of doing almost everything on that page. Including opening up the case and blowing out the dust regularly. One link on there does look promising. It pointed me at Process Monitor, and in the description it talks about monitoring the boot process. (Ack! Too many uses of the word "process.") So, that's what I'm going to look into next.

Again, I am actively soliciting any other ideas on tools or techniques to help me track this down.

Drake

 

[gregrocker]

Obviously you are misunderstanding the difference between installing and using a Program which is fine, and allowing the same program to needlessly write itself into msconfig>Startup and >Services to start with Win7 which is something else entirely.

I like TeamViewer, CCleaner, Puran, Office, Works, Partition Wizard Home, Acronis True Image, Quicktime and VLC players. None of those need to start up with WIndows. If I let even half of them do so it would impact performance noticeably.

I did miss one Startup which doesn't populate in the list but Sync's my User folders to the cloud and my other machines and devices, Skydrive. It is rarely noticeable even when I reinstall or reimage one of my machines and it is repopulating all of the folders for me.

 

[MightyDrake]

Depends on what you mean by "impacts performance noticeably." The computer will take longer to finish booting. But once it's running, most of my programs sit idle for most of the time. That takes very few CPU cycles. It doesn't matter if they're installed as a service or not. In fact, the nature of the API for services makes them marginally more efficient. There are things that a process registered as a service is allowed to do that requires serious hoop jumping otherwise.

Also, the examples I gave were programs which do actually need to be running at startup in order for them to do the job that I installed them to do.

I will grant you that there is one that I mentioned in my original post, WallpaperChanger, which really should be set up to run on a schedule. I've never bothered because, again, it's unobtrusive, I've vetted it for malware, and I just haven't set aside the time to bother finding out if it has a run-once-then-quit option. As it stands now, Windows checking against its schedule is probably nearly identically as CPU intensive as WallpaperChanger doing the same thing for itself. It ain't broke, so it really hasn't been worth my time to "fix" it.

So, yes, I do understand the difference between installing a program vs installing a program that registers itself as a service or runs on startup.

So, once again, we're back to personal preference. You like knowing that your machine is running as lean as Windows will allow. I like tweaking my computing environment to fit how I want to interact with it and I'm willing to install 3rd party components to do that. Neither of us is "right." We each go with what makes us comfortable.

Which is all probably beside the point of this thread. I'll be surprised if we learn that it's the fact that one of these programs is a service that is impacting whether the Startup folder is being bypassed. I'm willing to put $1 down that it's going to be something completely different. I do mean that as a friendly wager. Wanna take me up on it?

I will be reporting back here when I finally figure out what it is. I don't want this to be another of those threads I've found that leaves this issue unresolved. Even if I end up punting and reinstalling.

Drake

 

[gregrocker]

Aha. OK Drake, what I was waiting to hear was demonstrated in the last post: that you fully understand the principle of not letting any program start with Windows unless it absolutely needs to. I had not heard that from you until then. Most users don't get this at all, so I was still trying to hammer it through. You are already ahead of most users on this, even though your startups were yanked in a strange manner.

If the problem doesn't reveal itself in the Troubleshooting Steps and you decide to reinstall, stick with these same principles to assure you'll get and maintain a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

Most often strange anomalies like this result from excessive tweaking or optimizing.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164

 

[MightyDrake]

Okay. Whew. Glad we got that cleared up.

I don't think that I'm guilty of excessive tweaking. Back in the DOS days, when some of the games I was playing struggled to hit 20 FPS, I had a multi-config.sys file with eight different boots. But today's hardware has reached the point where, even with all the stuff I have running in the background, the first-person shooters I play rarely dip below 60 FPS, even with most of the graphic goodies turned up.

I do find myself running regedit occasionally, but it's almost always for diagnostic purposes. I very rarely actually edit a value. And even then, it's to fix some specific issue. I'm not altering esoteric values looking for a half-percent improvement on a benchmark.

Just FYI, Memtest ran overnight and finished 10 passes, with no errors reported. I'm currently running the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test. It's almost halfway through, so it probably has a couple of hours to go.

Process Monitor will be tomorrow's task.

Drake

 

[wzeallor]

Drake I have this problem too. I've read scattered forum posts about the issue and unfortunately the replies are usually like gregrocker's. I did away with the issue for a few days by rebuilding the system tray icons with ccleaner and choosing to show each icon instead of choosing the show all icons automatically notification. It happened again this morning though. Some services don't load too. So I think this is a Windows problem. It's definitely not a failing hard drive or a virus problem. Do you have a video card?

 

[gregrocker]

Why is my reply unfortunate? The Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 almost certainly contain the solution to the problem if one is thorough in completing them, besides which shows you the basic troubleshooting steps to solve any issue. That's unfortunate?

The issue is almost always tweaking by those who think they know best about an OS we've been working with daily since before its release, often cleaning up their messes. They want to get in arguments with the recognized top experts in the field while sitting at crippled or unbootable PC's. icnic:

 

[Layback Bear]

Unfortunate: I have never heard it put that way. Greg's methods have been used by thousands of happy users. It might not work for some but it does and has worked for thousands of happy computing people. You would be hard pressed to find someone who has helped more people repair their computers as much as Greg. When you do they are probably members right here on this Forum. If a member make a suggestion or recommendation and you don't care to do it, thats fine, don't do it. It's your computer. That does not make the suggestion or recommendation unfortunate. It makes it just something someone doesn't want to do on their computer. It's unfortunate I had to post this.

 

[MightyDrake]

Off topic of the thread, but I hope Greg doesn't mind a little feedback on his presentation.

First, it's good to hear that he's generally active and helpful on the board. And, I certainly understand that the vast majority of the time the answer lies in, "Read the FAQ." And saying that for the thousandth time can get stale.

And, I understand that probably a majority of new users to this board have systems encrusted with programs that don't need to run at startup and/or the user actually doesn't want at all.

But, what came across in our first few exchanges can best be summarized as, "Read the FAQ. But, if you're putting things in your Startup folder then you're probably screwing up all kinds of things." The unstated implication seemed to be that I couldn't expect much help if I insisted on doing that.

I'm sure it was pretty obvious that my initial reaction to those first few messages was pretty strongly negative. It really felt like I was being attacked for allowing programs to start with Windows. I hope I kept my cool. I strive to be civil.

I was especially surprised to be treated like that when my original post should have made it pretty clear that I wasn't the common, "It don't work." tech support case. I had spent some time researching and had included results for every suggestion I had found thus far. Many of which turned out to be in your own FAQ.

So, if you don't mind a suggestion, you might try to couch your language more along the lines of, "Here's the FAQ for your Windows issue. But, since the Startup folder currently has your attention, it might be a good time to look at what programs are being started there. You may find that you don't need any of them starting with Windows." Maybe with a link to a page that spells out the difference between installing a program vs allowing one to start up with Windows.

I think that would be more likely to lead the people who need it toward making good choices. And it might be less likely to put someone like me on the defensive, where I feel I have to justify my choices before I can get any help.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The disk diagnostic finished without error. I just downloaded Process Monitor and I'm going to figure out how to use that during boot.

Speaking of boot, I did forget to mention in my original post that I had enabled boot logging from the F8 menu. Nothing stood out there. There were a few things that it said didn't load, but apparently that's common. None looked like they applied to my situation.

wzeallor, yes, I do have a video card. An ATI Radeon 5850 or 5870, I can never remember which. I know that video drivers used to be notorious for causing seemingly-unrelated issues. Sound drivers, too. I did not install a new driver when the symptom showed up. I think the last time I updated the video driver was 6-12 months ago. If there were any correlation in time then I'd be more likely to consider that as a suspect.

What prompted you to ask?

Drake

 

[MightyDrake]

Managed to get Process Monitor to run after a couple of attempts. It's quite a flood of information. A needle-in-a-haystack situation. I can search and filter for "startup." I've found where it lists the programs that are in my Startup folder. I have not found anything near that which jumps out at me and says, "I'm the flag that decides to bypass the Startup folder."

I've done a net search and brought up the first eight or ten pages. I haven't really dug into them, yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for?

Drake

 

[wzeallor]

wzeallor, yes, I do have a video card. An ATI Radeon 5850 or 5870, I can never remember which. I know that video drivers used to be notorious for causing seemingly-unrelated issues. Sound drivers, too. I did not install a new driver when the symptom showed up. I think the last time I updated the video driver was 6-12 months ago. If there were any correlation in time then I'd be more likely to consider that as a suspect.

What prompted you to ask?

Drake

I have an ATI Radeon card too. A few driver versions ago, it randomly deactivated the mouse (or keyboard) at startup before login. It was fixed by the subsequent update. So, it's not improbable that the video card driver is interfering with a recent system update.

The driver was recently updated and I've not experienced the issue at hand since updating. But, the issue occurs randomly so, I can't be sure its fixed and it's not listed by AMD on the resolved issue list.

Updating the video card is a step in gregrocker's FAQ. So the comment was not directed towards the gregrocker's content but his insistence that an XP-era solution to malware and system sluggishness is relevant to a Windows 7 x64 user whose well written topic post indicates that he wants the startup programs to load.

FYI, here are some other topics about the issue:

• Win7 system tray icons not updating at startup
• System tray notification icons not showing.. - general-discussion - windows-7
• http://www.sevenforums.com/performa...ws-7-pro-64bit-system-tray-icons-missing.html
• http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...ification-icons-taskbar-not-loading-boot.html
• System tray icons populate erratically on boot. - Microsoft Answers
• http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/247009-windows-7-tray-icons-not-loading.html

It seems the issue occurs in x64 systems and that no one has a permanent solution.

 

[gregrocker]

Not only is running a completely Clean Boot not old school, it was considered radical when I first starting advising it here three years ago.

This is because previously in XP the MS Services were not hidden so there was a tedious process involved with a long list of Startups that we were advised to keep. Since these were hidden in Win7, it made sense for best performance to disable them all except AV as a rule, to avoid the freeloaders which creep in to leech resources and spy on us.

We know this is a major concern since our SevenForums tutorial Startup Programs - Change has over 2.5 million views in three years.

Nevertheless I braced myself for repercussions for advising in my tutorials and countless posts to disable all startup programs except AV and gadgets/stickies as a baseline - realizing that everyone would have their exceptions but that zero tolerance set the tightest standard.

After three years I can report that as radical as the idea was at the time there has not been a single complaint resulting from following this advice.

 

[MightyDrake]

... it made sense for best performance to disable them all except AV as a rule, to avoid the freeloaders which creep in to leech resources and spy on us.

I think I prefer the terms spyware or malware, depending on the behavior. Freeloader implies to me a lazy kid. These aren't put together by lazy kids. They're jerks who don't care how much their actions screw with other people, as long as they're making money.

For the vast majority of users, I agree with you wholeheartedly about minimizing what they put on their systems. But, for the most part the malware doesn't sneak in. It was there all along and people didn't put for the effort to find out ahead of time. Either by searching themselves or checking with someone reliable for advice.

On a philosophical note, I have little tolerance for zero tolerance. I think it leads to only the most superficial analysis. Which, by another name, might be called stereotyping. It's basically people turning off their brain before they've thought things through or dug for what's really going on. Following rules because they're rules, not because they make sense.

So, my whole point is to maybe back off just a little from all-but-attacking people for having programs that need to run on startup. By all means, try to lead them or point them in the right direction. If they insist on keeping their possibly-tainted programs then go ahead and make them do the work of ruling them out as an issue. Maybe do a search on "program name malware" and post a link to the search to show them how awful the spyware attached to it is.

But I recommend that you don't attack them on sight and subtly threaten to withhold assistance.

As an FYI on my current issue, I ran CCleaner last night, and after a little research, nothing jumped out as a problem.

Drake

 

[MightyDrake]

wzeallor, yes, I do have a video card. An ATI Radeon 5850 or 5870, I can never remember which. I know that video drivers used to be notorious for causing seemingly-unrelated issues. Sound drivers, too. I did not install a new driver when the symptom showed up. I think the last time I updated the video driver was 6-12 months ago. If there were any correlation in time then I'd be more likely to consider that as a suspect.

What prompted you to ask?

Drake

I have an ATI Radeon card too. A few driver versions ago, it randomly deactivated the mouse (or keyboard) at startup before login. It was fixed by the subsequent update. So, it's not improbable that the video card driver is interfering with a recent system update.

The driver was recently updated and I've not experienced the issue at hand since updating. But, the issue occurs randomly so, I can't be sure its fixed and it's not listed by AMD on the resolved issue list.

Updating the video card is a step in gregrocker's FAQ. So the comment was not directed towards the gregrocker's content but his insistence that an XP-era solution to malware and system sluggishness is relevant to a Windows 7 x64 user whose well written topic post indicates that he wants the startup programs to load.

FYI, here are some other topics about the issue:

• Win7 system tray icons not updating at startup
• System tray notification icons not showing.. - general-discussion - windows-7
• http://www.sevenforums.com/performa...ws-7-pro-64bit-system-tray-icons-missing.html
• http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...ification-icons-taskbar-not-loading-boot.html
• System tray icons populate erratically on boot. - Microsoft Answers
• http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/247009-windows-7-tray-icons-not-loading.html

It seems the issue occurs in x64 systems and that no one has a permanent solution.

Hmm. I hadn't thought through about a Windows update bringing out a bug in an existing driver. The video driver certainly is loaded early in the boot process. But, that still is a very strange interaction in today's protected memory environment.

I'm about to walk out the door. But I'll give that some more thought tomorrow.

Those links to missing system tray icons doesn't really match my situation. The few links I followed are running programs and for some reason Windows is ignoring their request to display the icons. Mine is programs not being run at all.

Drake

 

[gregrocker]

... it made sense for best performance to disable them all except AV as a rule, to avoid the freeloaders which creep in to leech resources and spy on us.

I think I prefer the terms spyware or malware, depending on the behavior. Freeloader implies to me a lazy kid. These aren't put together by lazy kids. They're jerks who don't care how much their actions screw with other people, as long as they're making money.

No I was not referring to Malware here, but updaters like Google which is pernicious spyware that spies on your habits and pastes ads everywhere you go, and nearly every other item you allow to start up with your PC. The freeware especially make their money selling the data they collect from spying on you, and all find it's big business.. So almost all do it, even software pretending to monitor HD condition.

Think of it like opening a port to every single listing in the Startup list, to access your PC to do as much or as little as they like. Why do this when you can wait to click on the program to run it and keep for yourself your RAM/CPU, connection and privacy?

 

[wzeallor]

Those links to missing system tray icons doesn't really match my situation. The few links I followed are running programs and for some reason Windows is ignoring their request to display the icons. Mine is programs not being run at all.

Drake

I have no way of knowing but I think they're reporting the same issue. They're just reporting the most obvious symptom. Now if we could only figure out the cause.