The Core Technologies Blog

Professional Software for Windows Services / 24×7 Operation

Which Programs Start Automatically? Autoruns Will Help You Find (And Eliminate) Them

Posted on December 14, 2020 (Revised April 3, 2022)

Windows starts many programs automatically

News flash: Most of the applications running on your computer were not started by you. Windows launched them automatically — either at boot or when you logged in.

And while most of those programs exist for a good reason — to help you access the Internet, print a document or play a game — some may be unnecessary. Those freeloaders run all the time, hogging precious resources and slowing down your computer.

Indeed, this is a huge problem on new Windows laptops and desktops. A myriad of “free”, manufacturer-supplied applications constantly trying to up-sell you antivirus, office, or cloud storage that you don’t want or need will cripple your once-speedy device. Welcome to a very frustrating experience!

Luckily there is a free and easy way for you to regain control of your computer. Simply follow these steps:

1. Download and Install Autoruns

Autoruns is a free utility from Sysinternals (a subsidiary of Microsoft). The program has a simple mandate — to reveal every single application Windows started without your explicit action.

Autoruns is packaged in a 2.5 MB zip file. Download it from here.

Installation is straightforward. Simply extract the contents of the zip file to a new folder. We recommend placing it in C:\Apps\Autoruns.

2. Start Autoruns

Launch the Autoruns executable (autoruns.exe). You will have to accept the obligatory license agreement on the first run:

The main window will come up. You may notice colorful lines streaming into the interface as Autoruns interrogates your system:

You will see a whopping 17 tabs — each one representing a location from where applications are launched!

As its name implies, the Everything tab consolidates all tabs.

3. Look for programs you don’t need

Most of the locations will be obscure and unfamiliar. For example, only the most technical folks need to pay attention to “Boot Execute” (low-level tasks that Windows runs to prepare itself) and “LSA Providers” (libraries supporting encryption).

Three tabs may be most useful:

Logon: Programs Windows started after you sign in to your computer. They are usually running visibly on your desktop, either in full-fledged window or squirreled away behind an icon in the task tray area.
Scheduled tasks: Applications and scripts launched at a specific time (or occasion). These are typically short-running maintenance tasks — there to keep one of your main applications in tip-top shape.
Windows Task Scheduler manages these applications.
Services: Long-running administrative applications started at boot (or in response to operating system events).
The Services Control Panel application (services.msc) manages services.

Let’s focus on the Logon tab.

Scroll the list to see what applications are started automatically when you sign in. Highlight an entry in the list and the bottom pane will show key details.

For example, here we see that version 2.13 of Box is configured to start automatically with the “-m” flag:

Autoruns will help you research unrecognized programs too.

Simply right-click an entry and select Search online to open a browser search page targeting the underlying executable:

Or select Properties to dig into the details of the program on your hard drive:

And if you are truly adventurous, select Jump to Folder to launch the Registry Editor and go straight to the application’s registry key.

3. Disable or delete unwanted auto-start entries

Once you have identified an application that Windows should not start automatically, you have a couple of options:

Un-check the box on the left to disable the application startup. The entry will remain there, making it easy to re-enable the item at a later date.
Delete the entry. This will remove the application from the startup list. Only delete if you are confident and you will never want to re-enable the automatic launch in the future.

Note that deleting the Autoruns entry only removes the launch at startup. It does not uninstall the underlying application, which you can still run manually.

For example, that entry for Box is not needed because we already run Box Sync at boot with AlwaysUp. Let’s get rid of it:

Similarly, we can deactivate Java’s periodic update by unchecking the box beside “SunJavaUpdateSched”:

We may want to reactivate that entry at some time.

Enjoy!

AlwaysUp 12.5: Dropbox fixes, Email improvements, AutoStartDelay and More

Posted on November 30, 2020 (Revised January 7, 2023)

We’re closing out the tumultuous 2020 with version 12.5 of AlwaysUp — our “run anything as a Windows Service” utility used by tens of thousands of savvy computer administrators across the globe.

This release delivers a few major enhancements:

File synchronization fixes for Dropbox 105+ running as a service

Dropbox threw us a curve-ball in September. With the advent of version 105, Dropbox suddenly stopped synchronizing files to the cloud when it was running as a service in Session 0.

This issue affected many of our customers, and as the Dropbox automatic updates started rolling out, the emails and complaints started coming in!

After a few days of frantic experimentation, our developers arrived at an effective and simple solution. Apparently setting the QT_OPENGL system variable to software restores all functionality. Dropbox copies files again.

We decided to incorporate the fix into AlwaysUp, to save new Dropbox customers from having to manually set QT_OPENGL. AlwaysUp Version 12.5 and later will automatically set the QT_OPENGL environment variable so that you don’t have to.

One word of caution: If it turns out that setting the QT_OPENGL variable causes problems in a future version of Dropbox, you can neutralize the fix through another environment variable. Set the ALWAYSUP_NO_DROPBOX_OPENGL_FIX system variable to any value and AlwaysUp will not alter the QT_OPENGL value.

Emails include recent service/application activity

Customers who have configured email alerts will notice that messages now contain the service’s last five events from the Windows Event Logs. The idea is to provide helpful context when something unusual happens, to avoid you having to log on and interrogate the event logs yourself.

Here is an email showing the new Recent Activity section:

Emails include recent service/application activity

Specify when Windows launches “Automatic (Delayed Start)” services

By default, services with startup type set to Automatic (Delayed Start) start 120 seconds after the last automatic service is launched.

That two minute gap is fine for most, but what if your server is blazing fast? In that case, one minute may be better.

Or worse, suppose your legacy server is painfully slow to boot? A five minute delay may be more appropriate there.

Fortunately you can adjust the delay in the registry. And now you can do the same in AlwaysUp too!

Simply select Set Auto Start Delay from the Tools menu to bring up the new feature. Set an appropriate delay value and click OK to save:

As noted in the window, the setting applies to all services set to Automatic (Delayed Start). It’s not just for services created by AlwaysUp.

Full compatibility with Windows 10 20H2

Microsoft published Windows 10, version 20H2 in October 2020.

Looking at the release notes, 20H2 doesn’t include significant changes to the Windows Services infrastructure. The update focused mostly on end-user improvements for the Edge browser, task tray notifications and the like.

Nevertheless, our team tested AlwaysUp 12.5 extensively on the new version of Windows 10. We’re pleased to report that no problems were detected and AlwaysUp remains fully compatible with all versions of Windows 10.

AlwaysUp is compatible with Windows 10 20H2

As usual, please review the release notes for the full list of features, fixes and improvements included in AlwaysUp 12.5.

Upgrading to AlwaysUp 12.5

If you purchased AlwaysUp version 11 (after June 2018), you can upgrade to version 12.5 for free. Simply download and install “over the top” to preserve your existing applications and all settings. Your registration code will continue to work as well.

If you bought AlwaysUp version 10 or earlier (before June 2018), you will need to upgrade to use version 12.5. Please purchase upgrades here — at a 50% discount.

See the full upgrade policy for additional details.

Enjoy!

Q&A: Why does AlwaysUp Restart my Application During Windows Shutdown?

Posted on November 16, 2020

This seems like strange behavior, but when you are using autologon to launch an application in session 1 and reboot the server, during the reboot AlwaysUp briefly relaunches the application in session 0. Here’s an example from the activity log:

Why does that happen? How do I prevent it from happening?

— Kevan

Hi Kevan. We have seen this before…

You’re encountering a Race Condition as Windows shuts down

Unfortunately you are experiencing the effects of the chaotic and poorly documented Windows shutdown process.

From the timeline you have provided, you initiated the reboot at about 10:26 AM, right? Within a few seconds of that, Windows logs off the user signed in to Session 1.

That system-initiated logoff terminates Session 1. Windows stops all programs running in Session 1 — forcibly if necessary. And since your application is running in Session 1, it’s terminated too. That happens at about 10:26:08.

AlwaysUp, which is constantly monitoring your application in the background, immediately notices that the Session is closed and that your application has stopped. AlwaysUp writes an informative log entry at 10:26:08:

Next, AlwaysUp springs into action to ensure that your application runs 24/7. It knows your preference is to run in Session 1, but that’s no longer possible. The only reliable place to restart your application is in the session that is always available to Windows Services — the isolated Session 0.

So AlwaysUp starts your application in Session 0. The log line at 10:26:09 confirms that action:

However, during the process of rapidly restarting your program in Session 0, AlwaysUp is notified of another important event. Windows is shutting down. This is reported at 10:26:09 too:

And finally, a mere two seconds later, both the application and service stop.

So the only hiccup — as you mentioned — is the unnecessary, “phantom” restart that happens at 10:26:08. This is because AlwaysUp is not aware of the system shutdown at the time when it detects the application outage. AlwaysUp is just doing it’s job, trying to make sure that your application is always running, 24×7.

This is a classic race condition, where two events (“session closed” and “system shutting down” notifications) occur in an unpredictable order. When AlwaysUp is notified of the shutdown first, it won’t restart your application. However, when AlwaysUp learns of the session close first, it will restart your application. And unfortunately you never know which sequence/behavior you’re going to get. 🙂

How to avoid application restarts during Windows Shutdown

To overcome the problem, configure AlwaysUp to wait for a few seconds before restarting your application. Make that change on the Restart tab.

For example, here we have instructed AlwaysUp to delay for 15 seconds:

That short pause should provide enough time for AlwaysUp to receive the Windows shutdown notification and exit gracefully — without a phantom restart.

Of course, this adjustment means that AlwaysUp will not restart your program immediately if it crashes. If that’s a problem (i.e. your application must achieve close to 100% uptime), you may want to reduce the delay. Even 5 seconds should be sufficient to sidestep the dreaded race condition.

4 Affordable Tools to Monitor & Bulletproof your Web Application/Server

Posted on November 2, 2020

Does your application accept HTTP requests?

Are you responsible for a mission-critical application that features a HTML, XML or JSON web interface?

And can you visit a URL (such as “http://yoursite.com:3232/status”) to confirm that your web application is working well?

If so, website monitoring tools — which periodically “ping” your site and confirm that requests are being accepted — can significantly improve your application’s reliability. If you’re not already leveraging such tools, do yourself a favor and grab one today!

Improving uptime: Detection vs. Remediation

Some tools focus on detection. Like the mythical canary in the coal mine, their primary job is to recognize that there is a problem and quickly inform you. They can give you a meaningful head start on resolving the problem — before your important customers start complaining.

But while detection is clearly an advantage, the gold standard is remediation. A quick, automatic remedy minimizes downtime and reduces (or eliminates) stress for the humans involved. Let the machines fix the problem while you eat dinner with your family! 🙂

With that important distinction in mind, let’s review a few inexpensive tools/services that we have used in our professional lives, and a couple that our company has developed for Windows.

1. Pingdom (Detection only)

Starting at $10/month, Pingdom offers a basic monitoring service that checks your URL every minute. If your site is unreachable, it will immediately email you to let you know.

Here are the options when adding a new URL check:

Notice that you can configure the check to be performed from multiple geographies. That is a welcome feature if you have customers accessing your site from around the globe.

The URL check’s alerting settings are equally intuitive:

And alerts can be sent via email or SMS/text:

We use Pingdom to babysit a handful of customer sites/applications. All in all, it’s a reliable detection tool that quickly shouts whenever there is a problem.

2. SiteUptime (Detection only)

SiteUptime is another excellent monitoring tool. It works much like Pingdom, but with a few extra capabilities.

Adding a URL to check is straightforward. Only the basics are required:

Things get interesting when you delve into the advanced settings. For example, you can choose the city from where the checks should originate:

Alerts can be sent by email, sms/text or by a phone call:

PagerDuty is also supported.

You can use SiteUptime entirely free (with 1 monitor, 30 minute check interval) but the professional-grade service starts at $10/month. Check it out!

3. AlwaysUp (Detection & Remediation for Windows Applications)

While Pingdom and SiteUptime are affordable, easy to setup services, their effect is limited to failure detection. Once a problem has been identified, they cannot help you take action to resolve the interruption.

That shortcoming is understandable. After all, those services work from the “outside”; they do not know anything about your web application (other than the URL you supplied).

On the other hand, our AlwaysUp utility — designed to run any application in the background as a Windows Service — can do more because it has control of your web application’s process. And at a one-time cost of $50 per server, it is a bargain.

When configured with the check web server sanity check, AlwaysUp will improve reliability by:

Checking the URL every few seconds or minutes (configurable)
Automatically restarting the application (or rebooting the machine) if the URL does nor respond or returns a 5XX error
Sending you an email to let you know what happened

The result is that your web application will be down only for a few seconds or minutes.

Note, however, that AlwaysUp works on Windows only. It is not an option for Linux web applications.

4. Service Protector (Detection & Remediation for Windows Services)

If your application runs as a Windows Service, then Service Protector should be your tool of choice for improved reliability.

Like AlwaysUp, it will leverage the check web server sanity check to:

Check the URL periodically
Automatically restart the service (or rebooting the machine) if the URL times out or returns an error
Email you about the issue, to keep you in the loop

You can protect an unlimited number of services on a single server for $70. If you use the product for just a single year, that works out to $0.20 per day. Peace of mind, on the cheap!

Honorable mention (Detection only)

We’ve heard great things about another three site monitoring tools but we have never tried them. If you not on Windows and are interested in detection alone, they are definitely worth a look:

Enjoy!

Q&A: How do I Remove an AlwaysUp “At-Login” Startup Task?

Posted on October 11, 2020 (Revised February 21, 2022)

At some point I must have setup a command line to start my application in AlwaysUp when I log in. But I do not need to do that any longer. I deleted the configuration in AlwaysUp but I do not know how to review and delete what I did in the command line. So this error comes up every time I log in:

Can you help me please?

— Nic

Hi Nic. The attempt to launch an obsolete AlwaysUp service is coming from one of several places. Please check the following:

Is there a shortcut in your Windows Startup folder?

Your Windows Startup folder holds shortcuts to applications that should be started when you log in. You can find it here:

C:\Users\YOUR-USER-NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

(You can find your user name by running whoami at a command prompt.)

Navigate to that folder in File Explorer. Do you have any shortcuts that launch an AlwaysUp application? Look for the AlwaysUp icon:

For example, here is a shortcut that restarts Dropbox in the current session sitting in the startup folder:

Dropbox Service Shortcut in the Startup Folder

If you find a shortcut for your bogus application, please delete it. That will eliminate your problem.

If you don’t see an appropriate shortcut, note that on Windows 10, there is another startup folder for all users:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

Please check for an AlwaysUp shortcut there as well.

If you still don’t find any shortcuts, let’s move on to the more obscure locations.

Is there a scheduled task?

The Task Scheduler is a powerful Windows component that can launch applications in response to specific trigger events. It is possible that someone created a task that launches your application/service whenever you log in. Let’s see if we can find such a task.

Start the Windows Task Scheduler by running taskschd.msc. (You can also find it in Control Panel by searching for “Schedule tasks”).
In the Task Scheduler window that comes up, select Task Scheduler (Local) on the left and scroll down to the Active tasks section in the center panel:
Browse the list of active tasks. Look for any mention of your application, AlwaysUp or anything else relevant to your situation. The Triggers column should say At log on, perhaps for your user account.
For example, here we have identified an AlwaysUp task that restarts Plex Media Server in the current session (i.e. visibly on your desktop) whenever you log on:
Let’s confirm that this is the offending task.
Double-click on the task to move to its location. And double-click the entry to open its properties.
Switch to the Actions tab and examine the actions. An AlwaysUp task will point to the AlwaysUp executable and reference the application name in the optional arguments, as shown here for Plex:
Also look for a batch file with a single command launching AlwaysUp.exe.
Once you are comfortable that you have identified the obsolete task, dismiss all sub-windows and return to the main Task Scheduler window. Right-click the task and select Delete to remove it from your system:

Still nothing? OK, let’s bring out the big guns…

What does Autoruns show?

Autoruns is a free administrative tool created by Microsoft. Its purpose is to identify every single application that Windows launches automatically — either when the computer boots or when you log in.

To check for an AlwaysUp task with Autoruns:

Download Autoruns. Extract the zip file to a folder on your hard drive (e.g. C:\Apps\Autoruns).
Start Autoruns as an administrator. (The tool needs admin rights to help you eliminate unwanted startup programs.)
Wait a few seconds for Autoruns to collect its information.
The Everything tab lists all applications, services and scripts launched at startup. Scroll through the list and see if you see any AlwaysUp tasks. You can also use the search function.
In any case, be sure to omit services. Those will be listed in the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services section. Those are not the problem.
If you find an AlwaysUp task, you can delete (or disable) it from Autoruns.
But please proceed with caution. Make 100% sure that you are taking the right action! You don’t want to inadvertently eliminate a vital operation.

Still stumped? Please get in touch for a few more tips

For additional guidance, please send an email to our support team detailing everything you have tried. Please include an export of your Autoruns data (created by selecting File > Save from the menu) so we can see what is automatically loaded onto your system. We’ll help you get the job done!

The Core Technologies Blog

Professional Software for Windows Services / 24×7 Operation

Which Programs Start Automatically? Autoruns Will Help You Find (And Eliminate) Them

1. Download and Install Autoruns

2. Start Autoruns

3. Look for programs you don’t need

3. Disable or delete unwanted auto-start entries

You may also like...

AlwaysUp 12.5: Dropbox fixes, Email improvements, AutoStartDelay and More

File synchronization fixes for Dropbox 105+ running as a service

Emails include recent service/application activity

Specify when Windows launches “Automatic (Delayed Start)” services

Full compatibility with Windows 10 20H2

Upgrading to AlwaysUp 12.5

You may also like...

Q&A: Why does AlwaysUp Restart my Application During Windows Shutdown?

You’re encountering a Race Condition as Windows shuts down

How to avoid application restarts during Windows Shutdown

You may also like...

4 Affordable Tools to Monitor & Bulletproof your Web Application/Server

Does your application accept HTTP requests?

Improving uptime: Detection vs. Remediation

1. Pingdom (Detection only)

2. SiteUptime (Detection only)

3. AlwaysUp (Detection & Remediation for Windows Applications)

4. Service Protector (Detection & Remediation for Windows Services)

Honorable mention (Detection only)

You may also like...

Q&A: How do I Remove an AlwaysUp “At-Login” Startup Task?

Is there a shortcut in your Windows Startup folder?

Is there a scheduled task?

What does Autoruns show?

Still stumped? Please get in touch for a few more tips

You may also like...

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