Start-Up Programs

[John McGanty]

I run XP Pro on a machine with 512MB of RAM. Upon
starting up, System Information shows only about 310MB
available. Can someone please tell me if XP requires
this much memory? If I have applications running on
start-up that I don't want to, where can I go to exclude
these from opening upon start-up? Does it have to be
within the apps themselves, or does XP provide a
directory where start-up apps can be deselected? Thanks
much for any help you can provide!

-- John

[Nick Cellino]

StartPro 2.0 is an easy to use program which would fulfill your needs
extremely well:

StartPro Allows users to add and remove programs to their Registry and
Startup directory that load during boot up. Release version includes support
for Drag-n-Drop, Clipboard functions and a feature called SmartBin which
saves deleted items. Supports Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP

http://www.daesoft.com/

Nick

"John McGanty" > wrote in message
...
> I run XP Pro on a machine with 512MB of RAM. Upon
> starting up, System Information shows only about 310MB
> available. Can someone please tell me if XP requires
> this much memory? If I have applications running on
> start-up that I don't want to, where can I go to exclude
> these from opening upon start-up? Does it have to be
> within the apps themselves, or does XP provide a
> directory where start-up apps can be deselected? Thanks
> much for any help you can provide!
>
> -- John
>


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[Jim Eshelman]

John McGanty wrote:
> I run XP Pro on a machine with 512MB of RAM. Upon
> starting up, System Information shows only about 310MB
> available. Can someone please tell me if XP requires
> this much memory?

No, it doesn't *need* it -- but it is very good at making use of it. Please
understand that "available" memory is a misnomer. It is almost backwards, in
fact! It should be called "unavailable" memory, because RAM isn't usable by
Windows until Windows has taken charge of it. Once Windows has taken charge
of it, the memory appears as "not available."

Damn nuissance, these labels, eh?

> If I have applications running on
> start-up that I don't want to, where can I go to exclude
> these from opening upon start-up?

Here is a list of the various locations from which programs can be launched
at startup:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/loads.htm

To understand memory use in Win XP a bit better, see:

"Virtual Memory in Windows XP"
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

--
Jim Eshelman
MS-MVP, Windows Shell/User
http://aumha.org/
http://WinSupportCenter.com/

[Ken Blake]

In , John McGanty wrote:

> I run XP Pro on a machine with 512MB of RAM. Upon
> starting up, System Information shows only about 310MB
> available. Can someone please tell me if XP requires
> this much memory? If I have applications running on
> start-up that I don't want to, where can I go to exclude
> these from opening upon start-up? Does it have to be
> within the apps themselves, or does XP provide a
> directory where start-up apps can be deselected? Thanks
> much for any help you can provide!


If you're looking to have more free memory, be aware that that is
*not* a worthwhile objective. Windows works hard to find some use
for all (or almost all your memory whenever it can (for example,
using it for cache if nothing else needs it). Then when your apps
need it, it will give it to your apps.

Free memory is wasted memory. You paid for all your RAM, and
shouldn't want to see any of it sitting around idle.

--
Ken Blake
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