Add a program the autorun list on Windows Vista

Question

I am wondering: how can I make sure some programs are started on the Vista startup?

Most programs offer this service themselves, but what about programs that don't? How can I make them launch at startup anyway?

Answer 1

Whilst C.Schmalzruber's solution may work, you may want to take a look at Autoruns from Microsoft / Sysinternals. It is designed to be more of a diagnostics tool, however it will show you all the locations that files can be run from.

From here, you can choose logon (or any other section) then you see all the locations of files that get processed and run, You can right click on the section title and click "Jump To" which should open the registry key and / or folder.

Just drag your icon there and it should launch when that section gets processed.

Click here for the Autoruns website.

Answer 2

The easyiest way is to copy a shortcut of the program you want to start automatically in the startup-folder.

Answer 3

for reference it can be found at this location (of course replace %username% with your username)

C:\users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Answer 4

Copy the program to the "Startup" group folder. Programs will then run when you login. Typical default locations for this folder are:

Windows XP:
C:\Documents & Settings\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Windows Vista:
C:\Users\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

If you want the program to run when all users login, add it to the "Common startup" group folder. Typical default locations for this folder are:

Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Windows Vista:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

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That will run a program when a user logs in. But your question actually asked about running a program on startup, which means the program is started, even if nobody logs in.

To run a program at startup, you can create a scheduled task, with a scheduled run time of "At system startup":