When you start your computer the chances are you could actually go away and make a coffee while you wait for it to complete. Overtime your computer becomes so slow that you either replace it or you take a hammer to it in a moment of angry frustration. You only have a 256K or 128K memory card when they seem to be churning them out now with a 1GB card as standard.

Of course, this will help, and you will see an instant difference at start-up. Until, that is, you start to install all the other programs you used to run on your old computer.

The majority of these programs think you want to use them every time you start your computer. They also think it's perfectly ok to communicate with "VGER" when you're connected to the internet and even try to automatically restart your computer if they find and install an update. Marketing are likely to consider it beneficial to have the program load automatically. The user isn't likely to quickly forget the software or the maker or use an alternative, you're right there in their face every day.

This is fine if you actually want to use the program every day. If you only want to use it periodically then you should be able to easily turn it off, and when I say "easily" I mean you don't need a computer degree to do so or have to type "msconfig" or "regedit" into the start and run menu. Personally,  I would prefer my computer to start with only one program, Kaspersky anti-virus software. Everything else I would like to choose to start when I am ready.

However, the default on the majority of software installations seems to be to run when windows starts and to automatically search for updates or newer versions of the software when you're connected to the internet without giving you the option to change it.

I was actually surprised that MSN Messenger 7 included the ability to un-tick "run this program when Windows starts" in the options tab. Prior to this version this wasn't included as an option. Instead you had to click start and run. Type in regedit.exe and click ok. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion un. Once you're there click on the MSMSGS entry and select delete. Then click yes to confirm.

At least one piece of software has made a positive change, if only the rest would follow.