Argh of the day: Programs that, when you install them, make themselves run at startup, but do so by some other means than placing themselves in your startup folder, thereby, making it difficult, if not impossible, to set them up to not do that.

Feedback: Stefano recommends Startup Control Panel: "Startup Control Panel is a nifty control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts." I tried it out, and it looks excellent. And Chris Jennings writes that, gives us this link, which "has good instructions for streamlining the startup process (via startup shortcuts, 3rd party software, msconfig etc.), but more important is the comprehensive reference list of which files do what, and whether or not they can safely be removed. I managed to get both my office and home PCs starting significantly faster." Handy.