Shutting down start up programs

[bratch]

My computer has been giving me problems so I just run it in safe mode and no problems.  Only problem is anything that uses Windows installer won't install.  I was installing a game and had to fight the computer for about an hour to get it to boot regularly I ended up opening safe mode writing down the running applications opening normal windows and closing everything but the applications taht are open in safe mode.  Its running fine now.  Somewhere I've got a bad application that is crashing the computer on start up. I figured my first plan would be to close everything of mine that opens on startup.  Where do I go to do this?

[Stetson]

Start > Run and type in 'msconfig' without the ' '.  Then select the 'Startup' tab

[lee n. field]

Then turn off everything under the startup tab.  Reboot into normal mode.  Repeat, turning on the apps one at at time until you've isolated the problem.  Uninstall that program.

If that doesn't fix it, Adaware, Spybot, and Microsoft's Antispyware (all free).  Rince lather repeat until clean.

[Tallpine]

Some "virus" programs will insert a registry entry that executes the virus process upon system startup, yet the program name will not be visible in your "Startup" folder.

To make it worse, the same virus programs check the registry every 30 seconds or so to see if their startup entry has been deleted and if it has then reinstate it

My wife's PC had this problem - I fixed it by manually deleting the offending registry entries and then immediately killing the power (NOT a "Start/Shutdown your computer" but pulling the plug!)