Some how I have about 10 icons in my toolbar and every time I start my computer up it takes about ten minutes to lod up all the icons :eek: I never put them there and I cannot figure out how to get rid of them:confused:.. I can't do complicated things on the computer so if you know a step by step easy way to dispose of them I would appreciate the help... thanks.. :)

I don't believe its your toolbar or your taskbar, but your system tray, lower right corner of your screen.

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/comput...ar-150739.html

Or do a search as in any forum rules suggest or go to page 4 of the Computer archives to see the link I just posted. Its all good, I am bored today anyway, taking a break from moving my house.

The answers provided by that link, while relevant, aren't what I would call ideal, given the circumstance. Keeping in mind that the topic this question belongs to is "Computers for Beginners", one would have to question the soundness of any answer or link (the https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/comput...ar-150739.html links to Tip of the day! - Remove programs from autostart | NordicHardware) which suggests a user edit the Windows registry(? ).

At any rate, to answer itskissmett, the first step in a situation like you describe (assuming Duane in Japan is correct and that you are indeed speaking of the Windows system tray), is perhaps to run through your installed programs and remove any that you feel you don't need. The reason I suggest this is because you seem to feel you did not cause the icons to be installed and loaded at start up.

Once you have uninstalled all applications you no longer need, and still find too many icons loading on start, the next step would perhaps be to check the preferences of the applications that are loading the icons, and see if they can be configured to not do so.

In my opinion, only as a final measure should you consider editing the start up items, whether using msconfig, the Start Menu Startup folder, or some third party application to edit them. You should NEVER edit the Windows registry unless you know what you are doing!

In order to uninstall any installed applications, you can either find their installed folder in the Start Menu items and look for an uninstall option, or better: use the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel applet. There are many ways to launch it, and many depend on how you've configured your system. The most foolproof way should be to click on Start, Run, and then type in "appwiz.cpl" and hit Enter. The list displayed is pretty self-explanatory - select an item and you should get a Change and/or Remove button.

In order to change the settings of one of the icon applications, either try right-clicking on the icon where you see it in the system tray and look for an option like Settings, Preferences, etc. or try launching the application from the Start Menu, and then using the main application menu (File, Edit, View, etc.) to look for an Options, Settings, Preferences, etc. type entry. Most applications that store settings will have something similar, and hopefully they also allow you to switch off the automatic start on boot.

Should none of the information above make sense to you, or you find it difficult to follow, I would suggest approaching someone you know who knows their way around computers and asking if they can take a look at it for you. If you follow the above advice and find you still have issues, feel free to ask in this post for more details/help on trying the manual Startup/msconfig solutions. Also feel free to ignore me, totally.

Hope this helps!

The steps to take are simple Start ---> Run ---> msconfig --->OK

This takes you to the System Configuration Utility and select STARTUP

The checkmark to the left means program starts at startup

Most programs want to start at startup by default -- uncheck to stop

Click on check mark and this unchecks selection -- Then Apply & Close

A message pops up asking to restart - restart now or later your choice