Startup Managers under Windows XP

[tekkaman]

4 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

However, I do not use it as my main startup manager due to the lack of the feature to delay the start of programs.

How does the delay of the start of program work ? I mean I think that starting with Vista you could delay services from starting but I haven't heard for other programs. Does it use task scheduler to do it  ?

[AstroSkipper]

3 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Crashing in ntdll.dll doesn't say much, you'd have to use the debugger to maybe have the chance to figure out what goes wrong.

Thanks for the tip!  New ideas are welcome at any time. TBH, I will only debug the corresponding services if it is unavoidable. First I need further confirmation whether my described problem has something to do with the POSReady updates or not. My system works perfectly in general except the problem with Glarysoft's Startup Manager.

Edited April 8, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

45 minutes ago, tekkaman said:

How does the delay of the start of program work ? I mean I think that starting with Vista you could delay services from starting but I haven't heard for other programs. Does it use task scheduler to do it  ?

First of all, a clarification! As mentioned earlier, in Windows XP, programs and services cannot be started with a delay natively. There are, however, some autostart managers that are able to start programs with a delay. Services can generally not be started delayed with these programs due to restrictions under Windows XP. However, you can write your own batch file that can also start services with a delay, which I have already done in the past. Autostart managers that offer such a feature for delayed start of programs write themselves or a separate program into the Autorun location of Windows and take over the start process of the respective program(s) that is (are) to be started with a delay. Such a program is Quick Startup from Glarysoft.

Cheers, AstroSkipper

Edited April 8, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[UCyborg]

Just food for thought, given my past experiences with Windows and occurrences of certain oddities at times. I thought my main Win10 installation works properly until I realized some parts do not. WER dialogs don't show despite DontShowUI=0 setting because some flag that is supposed to be set only under specific circumstances is always set for unknown reason, weather widget from ExplorerPatcher brings down Explorer for unknown reason, crashes after some time with no prior warnings signs, different DLL every time, Process Hacker upon inspection while the crashed process was being held showed USER handles reached the default limit of 10000, who knows why, they're not even increasing at some crazy rate during runtime, they just explode at random.

I've had some different sort of crap with XP as well back in the day and while I've probably forgotten about some oddities, one of my "favorite" ones was Explorer opening folders with delay. Or inability to open Effects dialog from Display properties, just nothing happened while clicking.

WinXP x64 install on my desktop and Win10 install on my laptop...I haven't detected anything...yet (with exception of one incident several months ago when I was using Explorer on WinXP x64 and suddenly memory usage spiked and consumed over 95% of available RAM (4 GB)), but they're not used as much, which probably helps. I thought about using DeepFreeze at some point, but it seemed too much of a hassle due to having files spread-out throughout the disks.

ASUS laptop from 2018 at work somehow works, mostly, but TPM broke several months ago and I get an endless spam of TPM errors in Event Viewer.

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

There are, however, some autostart managers that are able to start programs with a delay. Services can generally not be started delayed with these programs due to restrictions under Windows XP. However, you can write your own batch file that can also start services with a delay, which I have already done in the past.

I don't really have the need to start things with delay, but I tried using VBS script once for the purpose. Because T-Clock Redux on XP x64 would refuse to replace system clock 3 out of 4 times when starting up the computer and logging in. But it still happened even if I put 15 seconds delay, so ended up having to restart Clock64.exe process manually... Seems there was a better chance of working if computer was already warmed up by the time I logged in.

[AstroSkipper]

5 hours ago, UCyborg said:

I don't really have the need to start things with delay, but I tried using VBS script once for the purpose. Because T-Clock Redux on XP x64 would refuse to replace system clock 3 out of 4 times when starting up the computer and logging in. But it still happened even if I put 15 seconds delay, so ended up having to restart Clock64.exe process manually... Seems there was a better chance of working if computer was already warmed up by the time I logged in.

I do have the need to start a very few programs with a delay. One oft them is PDF24 Creator 8.6.1, the last XP-compatible version. On one hand, PDF24 Creator's application service is started automatically with the command "pdf24.exe -service", on the other, the corresponding program "pdf24.exe" itself. If the program is started before running its service, it doesn't work and produces an error. So I have to delay the start of the program to let its service running first.

Edited April 8, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[mina7601]

19 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Thanks for testing!

You're welcome, anytime! 

[D.Draker]

20 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

I tried to access Glarysoft's homepage with different French IPs via VPN. No problem here, either!  No matter which connection I use I can always access this website successfully. 

Yes, Swedish VPN worked, sorry, no German at the moment. What about the well-known German Ashampoo then  ? If my memory serves me well, it also had an XP startup manager. no ? 

That being said, I had XP only for a very short amount of time.

[D.Draker]

16 hours ago, tekkaman said:

How does the delay of the start of program work ? I mean I think that starting with Vista you could delay services from starting but I haven't heard for other programs. Does it use task scheduler to do it  ?

It was not yet implemented in XP. Only with Vista. With XP one would need a special programme, like the famous German Ashampoo. Here's the link to the free 2.0, I have no XP to test in on, but from what I remember, version 1.0 worked good.

https://ashampoo-startup-tuner.software.informer.com/2.0/

[D.Draker]

13 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

I do have the need to start a very few programs with a delay. One oft them is PDF24 Creator 8.6.1, the last XP-compatible version. On one hand, PDF24 Creator's application service is started automatically with the command "pdf24.exe -service", on the other, the corresponding program "pdf24.exe" itself. If the program is started before running its service, it doesn't work and produces an error. So I have to delay the start of the program to let its service running first.

Maybe off-top, so sorry in advance ! I'm just curious why would a PDF programme need a special service to run ? Is it related to its copy protection ?

Is there a portable version ? Legal portable.

[AstroSkipper]

15 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Maybe off-top, so sorry in advance ! I'm just curious why would a PDF programme need a special service to run ? Is it related to its copy protection ?

Is there a portable version ? Legal portable.

Off-topic: PDF24 Creator is a PDF suite. I use it mainly as a replacement for a printer. All print jobs are printed in PDF documents in my Windows XP system. And for this, PDF24 needs its own service in Windows. Therefore, a portable version would not make any sense. The program and its service have to be integrated deeply into the system just like a printer driver.  As you may have noticed, most newer printers have not supported Windows XP for a long time.    That's the reason for a missing, real printer. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[jaclaz]

Personally (JFYI) I use (an old version of) Cute PDF writer for that (needs Ghostscript installed, that is anyway an useful tool).

But AFAIK/AFAICR it doesn't need a service running, it appears as a normal printer in the print dialog.

jaclaz

[AstroSkipper]

Anyway! I think it's great that a few startup managers exist for Windows XP that allow the user to delay the start of certain programs during the boot process. However, it should also be mentioned at this point that not every program can be started with a delay. However, such problems can sometimes be solved by modifying the autostart entry. You just have to try it out as is so often the case. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[tekkaman]

On 4/9/2023 at 3:52 AM, AstroSkipper said:

Off-topic: PDF24 Creator is a PDF suite. I use it mainly as a replacement for a printer.

I use an older version of DoPDF. Version 7. It's a PDF printer that doesn't need ghostscript or service to use.

[dmiranda]

I use autoruns 13.98.0.0, old but funtional (probably hidden away somewhere in sysinternals site, or archive.orf?). I also use startupcl (more simple, using the startup registry entries in HKLM, HKCU and RunOnce (used to be in http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml, now gone). For services and drivers I use the old, but very functional p-service 2.7 (which used to be at p-nand-q.com). To delay startup items, I use startup delayer (http://www.cottonwoodsw.com/dlyrsumm.html) 3.0.0.366, but have not used it much (only for special occasions).

 

[AstroSkipper]

On 4/13/2023 at 4:42 AM, dmiranda said:

I use autoruns 13.98.0.0, old but funtional (probably hidden away somewhere in sysinternals site, or archive.orf?).

On 4/8/2023 at 11:41 AM, AstroSkipper said:

I use Autoruns, too. No crashes here and never had one.  The last version of Autoruns which runs without any problems in my system Windows XP SP3 (32 Bit) Professional POSReady is 13.98. However, I do not use it as my main startup manager due to the lack of the feature to delay the start of programs. 

I also used to use Autoruns 13.98 as my main start-up manager. Nowadays, I only use it to get an overview of all entries of programs, services and drivers that are started when booting, and to delete obsolete remnants.

On 4/13/2023 at 4:42 AM, dmiranda said:

I also use startupcl (more simple, using the startup registry entries in HKLM, HKCU and RunOnce (used to be in http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml, now gone).

If someone is still interested in StartupCPL, here is a link to its no longer existing homepage using the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20131106030702/http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
The download from there was tested by me and works. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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