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How can I configure the system to run a program at logon time?
John Savill
March 4, 1999
1 Min Read
A. The easiest way is to add it to the start-up folder, and you have two choices, the first is to add the program just to your start-up menu (%systemroot%ProfilesStart Menu) or to the all users startup menu (%systemroot%ProfilesAll UsersStart Menu).
If you don't want to do it this way (if you don't want users to be able to remove it) there is a registry key which can be used to run programs.
Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)
Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
From the Edit menu select New - String Value
Give it any name you want, for example notepad
Double click the new value and set it to the fully qualified path name of the program (unless it is part of your system path in which case you can just enter the image name), e.g. notepad.exe. Click OK
Close the registry editor
Logoff and on.
If you want a program to run only once and then never run again, perform the above but add the values under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunOnce. Once the program has run it gets deleted from the RunOnce key.
You can also configure programs for your account only by adding values to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
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