Resolved Is there another way to start a program at boot, other than Task Manager?

Having upgraded to Windows 10, one of the problems I have is a single program that will not automatically start when the computer boots. It started on boot just fine in Windows 7, but not in 10. I understand that is now controlled as a tab on the Task Manager in 10. It is turned on there. I've tried different compatibility settings, such as setting the program for Windows 8 compatibility, Doing that I could get it to start sometimes but not other times.

I also tried a Startup Delayer utility to move it in front of the other programs being started, or set a different startup priority, but it doesn't make any difference, it still mostly won't start.

Way back in MSDOS, and in early versions of Windows I believe, you could put a program in a Batch file or folder, and cause them to start up on boot. Is there any alternative like that to Task Manager, so I can get this one program to start up by itself in Windows 10?

Terry

 

First, check the options when in the program. There often is an option to Start with Windows.

Otherwise, just drag a shortcut to the program into the Start menu's Startup folder. The problem is, unless you are using a Start menu alternative like Start10 which brings back the familiar W7 Start menu and desktop, you cannot easily find this folder in Windows 10.

So the quickest way to find the Startup folder is to:

1. Hold down the Windows key, and press R,
2. Type: shell:startup in the text box,
3. Click OK.

Now create and drag a shortcut to your program into that folder and you should be good to go.

 

Bill,

The program options does have it set as "Run on Windows Startup." That is why it shows in the Win 10 Startup area of Task Manager.

Thanks for the idea. Getting to the Startup folder was easy following your instructions. Unfortunately, when I put the program shortcut in the that folder, and restarted the computer, the program still would not start. I just checked and it is still in that startup folder. In fact, it now also shows it in the Startup tab on Task Manager twice. It's a stubborn bugger.

But when I just click on the shortcut after the computer is going, it starts fine, and like I said, with Win7 it started fine. It also starts easily on another Win 10 Pro 64 computer I have, which is a Dell Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo). But not on the HP Workstation I am sitting in front of now, which is giving me trouble, is an Intel Quad Core I7.

One other idea that was suggested to me but I have not tried yet, is to uninstall the problematic program, and reinstall it using its exe installation file, and put the Windows 7 or 8 compatibility setting on the .exe file before installation. I'll report back here if that worked.

 

If you open Task Manager > Startup > File > Run new task > can you insert your Program and Save?

 

It's already in there. In fact, after I followed Bill's suggestion, It shows up in there twice. It still won't start.

 

MacroExpress v10. by Insight Software Solutions

 

Did you look at this: Macro Express Knowledge Base: How to Run Macro Express as Administrator when Windows Starts

 

Good find LJ.

I have to say it seems a bit odd it is necessary to go to such an extreme. I note title of that KB article mentions running "as Administrator ", and is followed by a note that says this only works for users with "admin" privileges . That is counter to the general recommendations for users (even experienced users) to use "Standard" accounts for their day-to-day tasks and only log in as an "Admin" when absolutely necessary.

@ Terry - if your normal account is a Standard account, you might be able to modify LJ's Macro Express KB article with this How-To Geek article, How to Create a Shortcut That Lets a Standard User Ran An Application as Administrator.

 

I'd been in phone contact with someone at Insight Software, and this suggestion has never come up. But I just called back and they suggested I try it.

I just put it together as a scheduled task, and it work just fine. The program still has a setting of "Run this program as administrator," in the compatibility tab of the shortcut, which might allow it to run with the account being "standard," but I have not tried that.

 

Seems odd that the suggestion never came up before now. Anyway, I am glad you have it sorted out and thanks for posting a followup with your solution.

 

To be fair, we were working on a couple of problems at the same time (the other having to do with incompatibility with another program after converting to Windows 7). Going back and forth between the two issues, he might have just forgotten about the approach using a Windows scheduler being on their Knowledge Base. When I brought it up to him, the response was something like, "Oh yeah, you should try that." I think he was very familiar with it, and had just forgotten.


tq

 

Thanks Bill. Started reading the article I thought maybe it was worth a shot.

 

I took a look and right now my only account is administrative. In the near future I'll set up a standard account and see what happens, and report back here.

 

After being requested to do so, I set up a "standard" account on my computer to test the ability of the scheduler to work in an account without administrative privilege.

When I went into the new standard account, I learned that the Macro Express program was not in the startup tab inside of Task Manager. I put it there and tried it . . . and as previously reported in my work on my administrative account, it did not work on startup.

I alsotested the program from clicking on the link in the standard program, and it would start up.

I then set out to use the task scheduler as recommended here. That had to be started from scratch on the standard account. I first disabled the Macro Express in the Startup Tab of the Task Manager function. Then I followed the steps in the recommendations in the instructions linked in this thread to build a scheduled task to operate Macro Express on startup. That process proceeded as expected until I was nearing the end. At that time I was presented with a pop-up that required that I type in the password of the standard account, which I did. Unfortunately when I did that, it gave another pop-up saying that the account was unknown or the password was incorrect. I repeated this a couple of times and became confident that I was entering the password correctly (I had used it to enter the account), and the account name was correct.

I've attached screen prints of the popups in a pdf.

I tried backing out of that situation by canceling on the next screen, and repeated the process, and was not able to get any further on the repeat try. So I stopped trying.

Because I could not set up the scheduled task, I cannot say one way or the other if the task scheduler would work on a standard account without the addition of the steps to make the program "run by administrator. "