One of my mates asked me “how do you stop programs running in the systray of Windows?” so I thought I might as well provide a little tutorial on how to disable these features.
The system tray is a background process and is vital to the stable and secure running of your computer so be cautious as to, which programs you wish to terminate. Icons will appear in the systray located at the bottom right corner of the Windows Taskbar as circled in red in the screenshot.
Windows provides a System Configuration Utility called MSCONFIG, this utility allows you to disable applications at start-up.
Instructions
- Click Start, Run and type MSCONFIG
- Click Startup tab and view the listings there
- Uncheck the corresponding entry for the application to disable it from startup
- Click apply then OK (may require to restart).
Windows XP is not reliant on programs for mandatory startup so you have the option to make your own decisions. There are however a few programs, which are highly recommended to keep for security reasons.
- Any Firewall (example: ZoneAlarm)
- Anti-Virus Software (example: Norton Anti-virus)
- Spyware Software (example: Webroot Spy Sweeper)
February 4th, 2006
I was recently fooling about with the Network Connection settings in Windows XP Professional and accidently uninstalled the Client for Microsoft Networks under the Bluetooth LAN Access Server Driver. I was trying to link my bluetooth devices what a silly mistake to make.
Anyway I was able to re-install the client but this mucked up my automatic logon to my PC. So I found an alternative instead of system restore. I hate to think system restore is the only way to solve a problem, more than likely it causes more issues than it’s worth. There are two methods to configure Windows XP to automatically login, these methods are described as follows.
Method 1
- Click Start, Run and type CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2
- Uncheck “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer“
- Click Apply.
- Then fill in your user information and password.
Method 2
Microsoft provide tools called powertoys, which allow access to system settings that are not accessible by Windows itself. Installing Tweak UI version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or above. Once installed click Start, All Programs, Powertoys for Windows XP, Tweak UI.
Click on the plus sign next to Logon to expand the branch, then click on Autologon. Check the box to “Log on automatically at system startup“. Then type in your username and password that you want to use to automatically logon and hey presto your sorted 
February 4th, 2006