Autoruns

Monitor and manage all auto-starting programs, drivers, and services on Windows.

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About Autoruns

Autoruns is a free utility from Microsoft's Sysinternals suite that provides comprehensive insight into all programs, drivers, and services configured to run automatically when a Windows system starts up. This includes items in startup folders, Run and RunOnce Registry keys, Explorer shell extensions, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, and more. It allows users to view, disable, or delete these auto-starting entries.

The tool is particularly valuable for system administrators, power users, and security professionals for troubleshooting startup issues, identifying unwanted software, and detecting malware that might be configured to launch automatically. It offers advanced filtering options, including the ability to hide Microsoft and Windows entries to focus on third-party applications, and can integrate with services like VirusTotal for malware analysis. Autoruns is a portable application, meaning it doesn't require installation and can be run directly from an executable file.