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I am working on a program for work which includes a startup manager. I have it to where the user can delete startup entries for programs, but it cannot disable startup entries.

With the CCleaner program a user has the ability to enable or disable. Can anyone give insight on how they are able to accomplish that? I have looked around in the registry but I don't see any differences to the keys when the startup is enable or disabled. Is this set in another location?

Edit: I used RegFromApp to monitor the registry while enabling and disabling startup on numerous programs. Turns out it actually creates keys if they don't already exist.

Kevin_
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    why reinvent the wheel? msconfig.exe (built) into windows can enable/disable startup programs. Why create a new one? – Keltari Jul 08 '13 at 15:56
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    As a sys admin I don't give the users rights to msconfig. I have developed a program to where they can do these kinds of task, but without breaking their machines. – Kevin_ Jul 08 '13 at 16:26

2 Answers2

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As I am not the developer of CCleaner I can't give you exact details on how they might manage this, but in general entries under:

32bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MsConfig

64bit :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MsConfig

will house "disabled" startup entries.

Jason Bristol
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  • Might want to correct your paths. There's no `HKLM\SOFTWARE\Software` or `HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Software` as far as I can see. – Karan Jul 08 '13 at 16:52
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    The 64 bit path is correct. For 32 bit just remove the 2nd Software – Kevin_ Jul 08 '13 at 17:04
  • Ahh good catch, that was an error on my part, its been corrected – Jason Bristol Jul 08 '13 at 20:15
  • @Kevin_: Must confess I'm *still* not seeing `HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Software` in regedit (and I've checked on 2 PCs now with Win7 x64). – Karan Jul 08 '13 at 22:29
  • @Karan Interesting. Are you trying to do the same thing that I am? – Kevin_ Jul 09 '13 at 12:30
  • @Kevin_: Not really, but your query did get me thinking about something so was just checking it out. :) – Karan Jul 09 '13 at 16:39
  • @Karan I see. Well what I wound up doing was monitoring the registry to see what all was going on. You can do it with any executable by monitoring the process with RegFromApp. – Kevin_ Jul 09 '13 at 18:25
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I believe in two possibilities:

  • Disabled startup entries are stored in a configuration file (. ini).
  • In the registry editor these values ​​are stored in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MsConfig\startupreg.
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  • Wonder how come two people posted `HKLM\SOFTWARE\Software` as a valid path? Is this path actually present on your PC, because I don't see it at all in regedit. – Karan Jul 08 '13 at 16:48
  • I didn't see it either. I tested on a 32 bit machine and a 64 bit. – Kevin_ Jul 08 '13 at 17:06