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On my Win7 machine I have a number of programs in my user's startup folder (%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup). A few of them like ZumoCast and OpenDNSUpdater pop up at logon asking for login info. I've entered that info when logging into my user account so they no longer popup for me. However, every time my kids or wife login to their accounts they get the popups asking for login info and they have to close all of them out. I don't want these programs to run in their accounts!

Checking Process Explorer shows that these processes are indeed running under their individual user accounts, but I have no idea how that's happening.

I tried deleting the shortcuts and creating a task that runs when my user logs in to start all these programs, but the task just hangs and none of them are started.

Does anyone have any idea what's happening here?

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    Have you double-checked the Startup folder for All Users? OpenDNSUpdater sounds like something that should be running from there, instead of per-user. Also, there are several utilities out there such as msconfig and Sysinternals' Autoruns that can help you troubleshoot these.
    – Iszi
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 15:06
  • Yes, I've checked the startup folder for all users (it's empty). I've setup my pc to automatically log me in and lock the screen at boot, so running OpenDNSUpdater under my user should be okay. I've also verified in Autoruns that these items are only in my user's startup folder.
    – jluce50
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 15:41
  • Did they get set as a task somehow? Check task scheduler.
    – Moab
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 17:25
  • Nope, they're not started from a task...
    – jluce50
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 18:50

2 Answers 2

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It is probably starting from the registry.

Try running msconfig and looking at the startup tab. You'll see all the items that start up and where from. Uncheck those you don't want.

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  • Autoruns shows this info too. And no, they're not starting from the registry (at least according to Autoruns)...
    – jluce50
    Commented Sep 23, 2011 at 15:18
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Windows has two Start Menu locations, one for all users and one that's user-specific:

  • System-wide: %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
  • Per-user: %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Unless configured otherwise, almost all software will install a startup entry in the system-wide Startup directory, and it's for this reason that even though you've disabled those startup entries for your user account, other users are unaffected.


Create the Disable Startup directory, adding them within it to disable them:

  • System-wide: %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Disable Startup
  • Per-user: %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Disable Startup
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