Sick of those pesky programs that insist on running every time you start Windows? Find out an ingenious way to use Windows built-in security to put a stop to them.

{mosgoogle}We all have them in our system tray, programs that load up and use precious memory resources and take up valuable space on your taskbar. Some of them you need, but most you can do without. Take charge and clean them out.

Some of the kinder and well written programs are configurable and allow you to change the settings that starts them up. If this option is available, then this is the best approach.

There are, however, many programs that do not give you the choice and no matter how many times you remove them, they return. Two that I find really annoying are the "Windows Messenger" and the "Quicktime Task". Both sit in the system tray and I don't need or want them there. I'll show you how to get rid of them forever if you have Windows XP Pro or Windows 2000. For those with Windows XP Home, this solution will not work.

First and foremost, however, I'd like to discuss a little gem of a program called Startup Control Panel, written by a young chap called Mike Lin from Boston. The program is available as freeware from www.mlin.net and Mike takes donations from those who want to contribute to his efforts.

This program works under all versions of Windows and is a vital part of any Windows installation. It's a program that will allow you to control exactly what programs load at system startup. This is one of the first things I install after setting up a computer with Windows. The program can either be loaded as a standalone program or incorporated into your Control Panel. I prefer the latter, but both work equally well.