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Startup Monitor

StartUp Monitor is a handy little program which, once installed, alerts you to any programs trying to place shortcuts into your startup section of your Registry. This is handy for stopping malicious programs such as Trojans, and other software which installs a lot of programs at startup.

To download the latest version of Startup Monitor see Mike Lin’s home page.

Installing Startup Monitor

Extract the ZIP file to a suitable location, and run the MSI package from the ZIP file. This should be called ‘StartupMonitor.msi’. If you have problems running it, especially on older systems, read the readme.txt file that comes with the ZIP for details on how to get the Windows Installer update from Microsoft.

The setup is a straight forward process - just follow the instructions on screen. Screenshots are provided below should you need any help.

That’s it for the install - you should now just seean option to Stop StartupMonitor on your start menu, like in this screenshot:

This is used to stop StartupMonitor until you next reboot, for example if you needed to install lots of software without it interfering.

Using StartupMonitor

Everytime you start your computer, StatupMonitor will be automatically started and protecting you. It will notify you when a program tries to create a key in your “Run” folder in the Registry - this is where a lot of new programs hide startup programs etc.

You will often find installing new programs will generate the Startup Monitor prompts, which look like this:

This is basically telling you that the program “StartupMonitor” has tried to register a program to run at your system startup - this appeared when I reinstalled StartupMonitor for this FAQ.

Note: because of the above it may be worth disabling the application when you want to install software that you are certain is safe. The reason for that is that often such software wants to reboot the PC after installation, and will add things to the startup to finalise the installation as it is rebooting. This makes it impossible to allow, as there is no way to acknowledge the dialog box during a restart.

In cases like the above, it is normally safe to allow the change, especially if you recognise the program.

One like this:

however, I personally always deny - it’s the RealOne player trying to add Auto Update junk to my startup for itself. StartupMonitor is a handy little tool to catch programs like RealOne trying to add sneaky things to your system startup - and gives you control over what you want added.

More importantly, it offers minimal protection over Trojans, as they often try to add themselves to the startup section of your registry, with you unaware of whats going on. StartupMonitor will always alert you to these changes, and give you the choice if you would like it added or not.

Always bear in mind though - if you don’t know what it is, don’t allow it - until you know it’s safe.

Enjoy!

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