How to Stop A Program from Launching on Startup Windows 10

Perhaps you have already installed a program that launches itself after restarting your computer?

Some publishers force the hand of users by running the program as soon as the computer starts. For some software, such as an antivirus utility or backup software, this can be legitimate.

But for many, it is totally useless… The automatic startup of Skype, OneDrive (the cloud file storage solution; I personally preferred to delete OneDrive…), Dropbox, Spotify etc… did not interest me at all and I therefore preferred to stop their automatic startup.

Why Disable Automatic Startup Programs Windows 10 ?

The main reason to disable the automatic start of applications or software is to gain performance and a faster start of your Windows!

As explained in our tutorial to optimize the performance of Windows 10, this automatic launch at the start of your operating system (whether it is Windows 10 or an older version of Windows such as Windows 8 or Windows 7) greatly slows down the boot time of your PC. As long as all these programs are not started, your computer will be working at full speed and you will certainly be pestering because of this avoidable slowness.

So this is one of the first actions you should take to boost your PC!

How to Stop A Program from Launching on Startup Windows 10

There are several methods to stop a program from running automatically at startup (including with the MsConfig utility) but here we will see the easiest and fastest method!

  1. Right click on the Start menu of Windows 10 and then select Task Manager.
  2. By default, the Windows 10 task manager is minimized. Click on More Details to view its full mode.
  3. Go to the Start tab of the task manager, this way you will get the list of programs that run automatically at the start of Windows 10 and their status (enabled / disabled).
  4. Right-click on the program you want to prevent from launching at startup and then click on Disable.

But be careful what you do!

Some programs must run at Windows startup (antivirus, utilities related to your computer drivers, update programs etc. …). You should not do anything and disable everything, be discerning! Block only the programs that are not essential to Windows and that logically should not be launched when Windows starts.

Just to avoid a blocking of your computer and the reset of Windows 10. Fortunately, it is of course possible to reverse the situation and restore the automatic launch of a program from the task manager by right-clicking on it and then clicking on Activate !