Monday, July 26, 2010

Tech: How To Run Almost Any Program On Startup

Have you ever wanted to run a program every time the computer starts up? Let's say you want Firefox, Chrome or Safari (Let's not talk about that other one which is pretty fugly and crappy.) and have it load Facebook automatically. Wouldn't that be cool? No, not cool but awesome.

Note: This would extend your startup time by more or less few seconds. I suggest reading this guide. Disable things you don't need to run. Here's the link. Speed Up Your Computer: How To Disable Start Up Programs

For the example I'm going to show you how to run Firefox on start up.


Step 1: Find Your Program and Make a Shortcut

Your probably a disorganized mess. It may seem that your wallpaper is composed of hundreds of desktop shortcut icons. Don't worry. I don't care. Moving on, find your program or a shortcut. Usually its cluttered in your desktop. Let's make another shortcut. How exciting! *sarcasm*

Right-click the program/shortcut and choose create shortcut. Wonderfully demonstrated with the illustration below.





















Step 2: Find the Start Up Folder

I think it will be safe to assume you know where the start/windows button is. Now locate that fancy-pants button and navigate to All Programs>Start Up which is again fancifully demonstrated in another image below. PROTIP: It's the highlighted blue folder in the picture. PROTIP 2: Right-Click and choose Open.


















Step 3: Open the Folder and Paste the Shortcut

Now copy the shortcut you made by right-clicking and copy then pasting it in the startup folder. I don't need an image or video for that do I?

Congratulations! You just made a program run on start up. So the next time you boot your computer. It'll magically run immediately if you followed the very complex steps mentioned above.

Updates!

Hey long time no post. I've been busy with something called life. Currently still don't have much of an inspiration to write or update but I will once in a while because I want to read tech tips I tend to forget. Which is my next post actually.

Updating the whole look of the blog with the new blogger appearance thingy. It's cool.