How can I delay programs that start automatically?

1. Go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx and download a small utility program called AutoRuns and use this to check which programs are automatically loading at startup. You can then disable any autostart programs from here.

2. Go to www.outertech.com and download their free batchrun utility. It allows you to manually configure what programs you want to run by creating a batch file with a brs extension. Double clicking on the brs file will launch the file and load the programs you have nominated. You can determine the order programs are loaded in by setting a time delay for each program. It does take a little bit of fiddling to set up but works extremely well.

Whilst I dont think it supports separate startup profiles you can create different start up files for different scenarios and activate the required file by double clicking the created start up file. A shortcut can be placed on the desktop.

If you want to always start a particular batch file at windows startup you can place a shortcut entry to the relevant brs file in the Windows start up folder.

To delay the start of certain programs, simply write a simple batch file.

I wanted to delay the start of CoreTemp by 30 seconds, so I wrote a batch file as follows:

@echo off
ping -n 30 localhost > nul
start "title" "c:\program files\coretemp.exe"

Save the file as "mystartup.bat" and have your start up menu point to that.

the "30" is the number of seconds to wait before coretemp is started. You can change it to whatever value you like.

I then have windows start up the batch file during start-up, which will then delay 30 seconds, before starting up coretemp.

No added 3rd party software needed, and the text is simple as can be.

The guy who said to write your own .bat file is a genius.

Fred, you are a life saver. Writing a small batch file is pretty lame but also genius. Thanks a million times....

Fred, don't know why but it does not work for me, issue the command "ping -n 30 localhost > nul" jsut sits there forever. I'm on XP and 7.

Try running "ping -n 30 localhost" without the ">NUL" and see what, if any, errors result.

17-Feb-2011

Fred,

This is simple and brilliant! Thanks for sharing such an easy and complete solution.

Mile

I did try WinPatrol first but it errored, stating that "It couldn't find the file". It was right there where it said it wasn't??!

Uninstalled WP and just used Fred's batch file.

Fred, you're pure genius! Thanks, that worked great! Simple always works best....

Thanks!

Tom T