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Startup programs (faster boot)

"Startup bloat" = programs that launch themselves when Windows starts and run in the background even when you don't need them right now. Over time a lot of them pile up → slower start and needlessly used-up memory.

How to get there

On the main screen the list has its own "Startup" button — at the bottom, next to Space map and The Hole. Open it whenever you feel like it, even when Viktor isn't complaining about anything.

The other route goes through the health check: the "Startup programs" card has a Tune ▸ button on the right that opens the same list.

What you see in the list

For each item:

what it is — the program's publisher and description from its file (like Task Manager),
where it launches from and a short line on why to (not) disable it,
a checkbox to pick what to disable. No blind bulk disabling.

Disabling = disabling, not deleting

Viktor doesn't delete the program — it disables it the same way Task Manager does: it leaves the entry in place in Run / Startup and just marks it disabled. So the program:

stays visible in Task Manager (as Disabled) — it doesn't vanish anywhere,
doesn't launch at startup (boot is snappier),
is still installed and you can run it manually any time.

Everything can be restored from the hole (a disabled startup is a permanent record there, it never deletes itself) — restoring enables it again.

Traffic light — what's safe to disable

Items are colour-coded and (un)pre-selected accordingly:

🟢 Green — safe. Ordinary apps (launchers, chats…). Pre-selected, disable at will.
🟠 Orange — careful. Tied to hardware (printers, scanners, audio interfaces) or requiring an administrator. Highlighted but unchecked — disable them only when you know you don't need that device feature.
🔴 Red — hands off. Sensitive: antivirus, backups, remote access, drivers, OneDrive. Viktor won't even let you check them and only shows them so you know they're there.

Microsoft Store apps

Spotify, Xbox and other Store apps start up differently from the rest — they have no Run entry, the package manages it itself. Viktor used to leave them out of the list entirely, so they were invisible even though they were starting and holding memory. On the author's PC, Spotify and Xbox together were running over a gigabyte out of sight like that.

Since version 1.1.0 Viktor sees them and counts them in — they sit in the list in orange with the tag "from the Store — turn it off in Windows". You can't check them, and that isn't laziness: Microsoft gives the interface for switching off that kind of startup only to the app itself. Nobody from the outside, Viktor included, can do it on its behalf.

So you turn them off in Windows:

Settings → Apps → Startup (or Task Manager, the Startup tab).

Viktor also flags them in the health check — they count towards the number of startup programs, and the advice says how many of them you have to sort out in Windows.

Tip

After disabling the excess programs, the Windows start is usually noticeably snappier. When you start missing something, you restore it from the hole (or re-enable it in Task Manager).