Here’s another cool free utility for checking what programs are automatically starting. It’s called Autoruns from the good people at SysInternals.

It shows a lot more than the traditional msconfig. Great for poking around to look for spyware and old programs that might be eating up CPU cycles during boot up.

It’s a pretty advanced tool so use it at your own risk.

Here is a list of my top 6 free utilities. A must have for every computer user.

1. ZoneAlarm – This is a great free software firewall that checks if any application is making strange outgoing connections. You need to be a little computer savvy to know when to allow and when to deny connections, though. Still the best in it’s class.

2. Ad-Aware and Spybot – The two best free spyware cleaners on the market. Get both if you like since there currently is no cleaning software that catches 100% of spyware.

3. EditPad – A cool general purpose text editor that is light years ahead of NotePad. You can open multiple windows, wordwrap, autoindent, etc. The Lite version is free.

4. PowerToys for XP – A host of cool utilities such as Command Prompt Here for dropping into the correct DOS directory and TweakUI which allows you to make adjustments to your Windows environment. The best feature of TweakUI is the Paranoia tab that allows you to clear out your history buffers.

5. Screen Hunter – An excellent screen capture utility from the fine folks at Wisdom-Soft.

6. Trend Micro’s House Call – Fast becoming my virus checking program of choice. Online scanner is useful for checking systems where you feel the local Norton or McAfee has been compromised.