Managing startup applications in Windows 10

In earlier versions of Windows, I – and I would assume many with me – used the Startup folder in the Start menu to manage startup applications. In Windows 10, however, this folder is no more, and so we must find other ways of dealing with them. There are three ways to do so, all of which are relevant.

First, we look at what apps are currently configured to start on login. These can be managed from the Startup tab in Task Manager:

If you right-click on an application, you can disable an application, open its file location, search for it online (which basically searches for the executable name and software manufacturer), or view its properties:

This, however, does not let us add or remove startup applications. To do that, we must use a shell command, which opens the Startup folder:

shell:Startup

As you would previously, simply copy and paste shortcuts into this folder for the applications you want to run on startup (or delete those that you no longer want to be run). As you may already have guessed, this opens the Startup folder for the currently logged in user, located at C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. There is, however, also a shell command for the shared startup folder:

shell:Common Startup

The same applies here as above, only now the folder opened is C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.