This official Microsoft tool revealed what programs actually start when I sign in to Windows

I thought I had a good handle on what started when I turned on my Windows PC. Then I opened Microsoft’s Autoruns and was surprised by how many more entries it showed me. So I decided to investigate them to see which ones actually mattered and how much they were using my PC’s resources.

I thought Windows had me covered

Autoruns showed me a much bigger startup picture

I’ve used Settings > Apps > Startup plenty of times to control which programs launch when I sign in to Windows. I also use Task Manager when I want to see what’s actually running after I sign in and how much memory or CPU it’s consuming.

So when I opened Microsoft’s free Autoruns utility,…