Managing what launches at Windows startup has moved through several different interfaces over the years — knowing the history explains why some old advice (“open msconfig”) is now outdated.
The msconfig Era
For years, msconfig‘s Startup tab was the standard way to disable startup programs — a plain checklist with minimal information about each entry’s actual impact.
Task Manager Took Over
# Task Manager's Startup Apps tab is now the primary interface, # and shows a genuinely useful "Startup impact" rating (High/Medium/Low) taskmgr # Or the direct Settings equivalent: Start-Process "ms-settings:startupapps" # View startup items via PowerShell directly Get-CimInstance Win32_StartupCommand | Select-Object Name, Command, Location
What msconfig Is Still For
msconfig still exists and is still useful for boot options (Safe Mode, boot logging) and services management — but for startup program management specifically, Task Manager’s Startup Apps tab has been the better tool since Windows 8, with actual impact ratings msconfig never provided.