Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 16:29:55 -0500
From: Dennis McCunney (dmccunney@NOSPAMnyc.rr.com)
Newsgroups: sff.tech.help.virus
Subject: Managing the Windows System Tray (was Re: Argh. Lyric pages)

Christina wrote:

> As a separate, but connected question, how do I put anything in and
> out of that system tray?

Things residing in the system tray are applications loaded on startup by Windows. The problem is, there are a number of places where such things can be loaded from.

If you click Start/Programs/Startup, you'll see one place. That's your personal startup folder, and shortcuts placed there will be loaded when you log onto Windows.

But there is also a similar section that contains programs loaded for all users of the machine (since Windows assumes by default that more than one user may use the machine, and supports custom settings for each.)

Programs can also be loaded from the HKCU (Current User) and HKLM (Local Machine) sections of the Windows registry database. (If you run Win9X, stuff can also be loaded from the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI config files used by earlier Windows versions.)

One of my standard tools is Startup, a small utility program by a kid named Mike Lin in NJ. Run Startup, and it gives you a tabbed display of stuff in the User and Common Startup folders, and the Current User and Local Machine sections of the registry. Entries in the tabs may be disabled, deleted, moved to different startup locations, or edited to change the action they perform. You can also add entries to be loaded on startup.

Startup is available as a Control Panel applet, and a stand-alone EXE file. MSConfig will do the same thing, if available (IIRC, it was *not* not shipped by default with Win2K, though the WinXP version will work in 2K), but Startup is quicker and easier.

Startup is freeware, available from http://www.mlin.net/ .