Generate a list of Windows startup programs using the command line

Posted on September 26, 2008 at 5:35 am

You probably already knew this, but if you want to see a list of all of the startup programs that run when Windows starts, you can simply go to the MSCONFIG tool and click on the Startup tab! Here you can enable or disable startup programs easily. (Read here on how to use MSCONFIG)

enable startup programs

Knowing which programs run at startup can be very useful for debugging all sorts of performance issues related to your PC. A good thing to do would be to make a list of all of the startup programs while your computer is running normally. That way, if there is a process you see running on your system later on that is taking up a large amount of resources, you can check your list to see if it was there earlier or not.

You can actually generate a list of all the startup programs in Windows using the command prompt and save the list as a text file or an HTML document. Here’s how:

Step 1: Open the command prompt by going to Start, Run and typing in CMD.

command prompt

Step 2: Now type in the following command at the prompt and press Enter

wmic startup get caption,command

You should now see a list of all the applications along with their paths that run at Windows startup.

startup applications windows

Step 3: If you want to export the list out as a text file, type in the following command:

wmic startup get caption,command > c:\StartupApps.txt

And if you want to create an HTML file, just type this instead:

wmic startup get caption,command > c:\StartupApps.htm

That’s it, now you have a list of startup programs that you can save and use as a reference for later on. Enjoy! Source: Tech Recipes

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

6 Responses to “Generate a list of Windows startup programs using the command line”

  1. Lax said on : September 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    Good and useful info…

    keep rocking dude.

    Thanks,
    Lax


  2. Abdulqader said on : January 25th, 2010 at 1:05 am

    You can efficiently manage Windows startup programs using CCleaner also.


  3. Paul said on : February 16th, 2010 at 11:00 pm

    I tried it but it says “wmic” is not an external or internal command.. what to do?


  4. Kristophe said on : February 17th, 2010 at 8:46 am

    When I run the “wmic startup…” command, my computer hangs for a while, and does nothing. Anyone got any suggestions about that?


  5. Wart said on : March 17th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    Thanks for this command. I am in IT and it’s useful for me to run this on user PCs to see what all the crap they have in their startup list.


  6. zubair said on : July 20th, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    Thanks.

    However, will you kindly tell me how can I remove a program form startup by using command prompt?

    Please?


Please post your comments/suggestions!