Speed up startup and shutdown of Vista by disabling unwanted programs.

There are various programs that insist on starting up without apparent cause along with Windows - such as Quicktime, iTunes, Winamp Agent, etc. If you take a look at your system tray on the right hand side, next to the clock you will see many programs which you havn't even heard of sitting there. Right clicking and selecting exit individually for each program is a temporary solution and very repetitive. Here is how to do it.

Step 1: Click on the Windows globe button (where the Windows Start button used to be in previous Windows versions).

Step 2: Start typing in the search box "msconfig", and hit "Enter".

This is the System Configuration Utility - an excellent tool to disable all programs that bother you during startup.

Step 3: Click on the "Start up" tab.

Step 4: Under this tab you'll see a list of programs that run during the startup. Carefully select the program that you want to disable, and click "OK".

Step 5: You'll be asked to restart the PC: choose "Restart Later" if you want to continue working. The next time your PC restarts, the program won't start along with it.