launching startup programs

Dear all,

I have a question about launching startup programs.

My system is configured to run a GUI program immediately after user logon.
Instead of placing it in the user's "Startup" directory, the program is invoked via a string value in the registry key "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run".

This approach used to work fine on WinXP & Win7, but the invocation on Win10 experiences a delay of at least 10s after the desktop appears.
There is no help even if all other apps in "Settings -> Apps -> Startup" are turned off.

My question is : how to raise the priority of a particular startup program in the launching sequence ?

dalchina said:

Two approaches:

a. BootRacer

This program allows the order of startup items to be changed. So if you wanted that prog to be launched before others, this may help. (See 'Set Order' below)

b. A different approach would be to disable that startup, and instead create a scheduled task to launch it, e.g. triggered to start on logon

Such a scheduled launch seems to take precedence over most others.

Thank you for your suggestions.

I've tried approach (b) before.
The program is launched successfully at user logon, but it runs in the background and the GUI does not show up. This method, I think, is primarily for console applications.

I'll try approach (a) BootRacer to see if it can help.

dalchina said:

It depends what you're launching.

For example, I set up a task to launch Notepad.exe just as a demo.

Notepad's GUI appeared almost immediately with the desktop.

Noted: Your OS is shown as Win 7 - this forum is for Win 10. If you in fact are using Win 10, please update that and add your build number. Otherwise there is sevenforums for Win 7.

I did have used "notepad.exe" for my previous attempt.

On revising the configuration of the failed attempt, I figured out what had gone wrong.

In section "Security options" of the "General" tab, the option "Run whether user is logged on or not" was chosen, and this prevented the "notepad.exe" GUI from showing up.
If the option "Run only when user is logged on" is chosen, then everything works as expected.

P.S.: The OS field of my profile has been updated. I'm sorry for causing confusions.