How to remove unwanted programs from starting with windows?

Every time that you install a new applications on your computer some entries are created on the windows start-up applications and in no time your computer will be overloaded with system tray programs that you don't need. This means that every time that you start-up your computer windows will load all these applications on memory (RAM) and your computer will become slow and heavy.

The question is where do I find these entries? How do I remove them?

There is a little program that will help us do just that is made by Trend Micro and the name is hijackthis. You can download it free from Trend Micro!

After you downloaded to your computer (preferably somewhere under your documents double click on it to run the program

You will see the main menu if you want to save the result of the scan to send it to someone click the first option, if you just want to do a system scan for you use the second option "Do a system scan only" then click "Scan". A list of all the programs that are loaded every time you start your computer will be displayed; you will find mainly 3 types of entries:

1. Necessary system files and drivers (You should never these files and drivers as you need these entries to the proper functioning of your computer.)
2. 3er party programs that you installed (Some of these entries are unnecessary and can be safely removed)
3. General Malware (Spyware and Adware) Entries that get created by malicious software and will display unsolicited ads. (All entries on these category have to be removed)

Now, how do I know in what group they belong? Here is an example:

Each line displays one entry, for each entry you will get:

Checkbox: in order to remove the entry

Kind of object: BHO (Browser helper object) in this case but it could also be a System service, a toolbar an extra button or a Run (System start-up entry).

Description: Legitimate software will almost always give a good clear description for each entry, (no name) indicate a suspicious entry and you should read carefully the rest of the line to make sure that it is a good entry. In the second line in our example we have a (no name) but if we continue to read the rest of the line we can see that it belongs to SPYBOT and it is safe to keep.

Installation folder: This indicates where in our system the program is located, this part is very important as legitimate program will always get install in their own folder, like C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat\. A program that is not legitimate will use a random folder like C:\wxkslm\trojan-xml.htm

To be continued...