Windows seven, System configuration startup programs is empty?

[whs]

Btw, there is nothing wrong having an empty Startup folder. I always delete all the startups - makes the boot faster and the startups do not use any RAM. All these programs will be started when needed.

The only startups you may want are your AV program (but many AV programs have their own method to start at boot and need not be in the startups) and programs that you started yourself - e.g. a dock or the desktop gadgets (sidebar). All the others you can live without.

To put programs into the startups, make a shortcut of the program .exe (from program files) on the desktop. Then press Start and type shell:startup and hit Enter. That brings up your startup folder. Drag the program .exe shortcut into this folder. Close the folder and you are done.

 

[Elwood42]

Btw, there is nothing wrong having an empty Startup folder. I always delete all the startups - makes the boot faster and the startups do not use any RAM. All these programs will be started when needed.

The only startups you may want are your AV program (but many AV programs have their own method to start at boot and need not be in the startups) and programs that you started yourself - e.g. a dock or the desktop gadgets (sidebar). All the others you can live without.

To put programs into the startups, make a shortcut of the program .exe (from program files) on the desktop. Then press Start and type shell:startup and hit Enter. That brings up your startup folder. Drag the program .exe shortcut into this folder. Close the folder and you are done.

Completely wrong. It didn't remove them from that folder at all. It removed them from msconfig startup. Type msconfig into the start bar, hit enter. click the startup tab. That box was completely empty for me. Nothing there at all.

It deleted the registry startups for my AV and all important desktop drivers, sound cards, graphics cards, everything. Nothing at all about the startup folder in the windows menu.

 

[gregrocker]

It sounds like something that happens with a tweaking tool or optimizer suite that we see cause a lot of problems here. Otherwise it could either be infection or some type of major stumble with settings edits which would be hard to do inadvertantly.

Whichever, now with a Clean Reinstall if you'll stick with the tools and methods in the tutorial you won't have this happen again. If tempted to install an optimizer or do any tweaking, be sure to ask here first.

 

[Elwood42]

It sounds like something that happens with a tweaking tool or optimizer suite that we see cause a lot of problems here. Otherwise it could either be infection or some type of major stumble with settings edits which would be hard to do inadvertantly.

Whichever, now with a Clean Reinstall if you'll stick with the tools and methods in the tutorial you won't have this happen again. If tempted to install an optimizer or do any tweaking, be sure to ask here first.

But I didn't download any kind of tweaking or optimizing tool, only disk partitioning tools, and I made no attempt to partition the C Drive, where windows is installed.

My virus scans, malware bytes scans, window defender scans all came back clean, so I'm hoping it wasn't an infection. What kind of infection would gain from deleting startup files and system restores?

Also how could it be a stumble with settings edits, as I wasn't touching the settings relating to registry or system restore at any point, and I'm unsure how the program could also have been doing that.