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How do I change the starting order of my start-up items in the system tray

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crofty83

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Location
North West, UK
I would like to change the way the system tray programs load on boot. I'd like to have the Firewall start first then the Wireless connection icon thingy second.

How is this done?
 
one way could be to create a cmd or bat file with some lines which would load your programs in the way You want:)
 
To start them sequentially create a shell script something like this...

Code:
-------------mystartup.cmd-------------
start "" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\outlook.exe"
start "" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\word.exe"
start "" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\excel.exe"
---------------end file------------------

... and place it in your ...\Startup directory.
 
I would be interested in doing this as well.redduc, can you be more specific on how to create this shell script? ALOT more specific LOL How do I create this script? What filr exrension do I have to give it? etc...thanks
 
Save the script with a *.vbs extension, and you'll want to place it in...

%ALLUSERSPROFILE% | Start Menu | Programs | Startup

... (C:\Documents and Settings | All Users | Start Menu | Programs | Startup), for it to run no matter who's logged on.

%USERPROFILE% | Start Menu | Programs | Startup

... (C:\Documents and Settings | Your Name | Start Menu | Programs | Startup), for it to run only when you're logged on.
 
Wouldn't that just load the programs like normal onto the taskbar. Im wanting to change the order of the programs that are loaded into the system tray on start-up
 
The script will execute each program one after the other, with the result that programs listed earlier in the script (e.g., "outlook.exe" in redduc's script) will start up before programs listed later (e.g., "word.exe" and "excel.exe"). All you should need to do is have it run the programs in the order you want them (so your firewall program would be your first line, then your wireless) to start.

JigPu
 
Well if one program takes a lot longer to finish loading, wouldn't a faster program get finished earlier even if it was next in line? Computers multi task when loading stuff.
 
I did some testing to double-check, and you are indeed correct. It appears that the 'start' command given in redduc900's script returns immediatly and loads the program in the background. The result of this is that all programs listed are started nearly simultanously, and the fastest loading program will still open first :(

I tried to create a batch file as well, but it works even worse than redduc900's. The problem with the batch file is that a given command line won't terminate until the program terminates. In other words, if you had a list of 50 programs in the batch file it would open the first one listed, wait for you to close it, open the second one, wait for you to close it, open the third one, wait for you to close it, etc.

The only thing remaining that I can think of to control the boot sequence would be to place the programs that need to start in different startup locations. Windows does execute some before others, though I'm unsure if it waits for the programs in one group to all finish loading before continuing on to the next startup location... Check out this page for all the times Windows starts up programs.

JigPu
 
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