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AutoCAD 2013 sp 1 is now available, NOT. 498E1, Autodesk Mudbox 2013. Use MSCONFIG to boot up in a modified mode.
I was talking recently with a colleague who works on the .NET Framework setup and Windows Installer technical support team here at Microsoft. He told me about a set of steps that his team typically has customers try when they call in to report failed installations. I wanted to post these steps here in case they are helpful to anyone else struggling to get an application installed.
This set of steps allows you to easily find all services that are installed on your system and temporarily disable them so they cannot interfere with installation processes. It also allows you to identify and temporarily disable programs that are scheduled to start every time the system reboots. The System Configuration tool (also known as MSConfig) allows you to manage these and other settings.
I recommend trying the following steps in cases where a product fails to install on your system and you've already tried other workarounds posted on my blog and elsewhere to attempt to resolve the issue:
- Click on the Start menu, choose Run, type msconfig and click OK
- In the System Configuration tool, click on the Services tab
- Check the box labeled Hide all Microsoft services
- Click the Disable All button to disable all non-Microsoft services
- In the System Configuration tool, click on the General tab
- Click the Selective startup radio button
- Uncheck the box labeled Load startup items
- Click OK to accept all changes in the System Configuration tool
- Reboot for the changes to take effect
- Attempt to install the application that previously failed
- Re-run the System Configuration tool and re-enable the services that you disabled in step 4 above
In many cases, the above steps will allow a previously failing setup package to install successfully. Hopefully they will be useful to you as well if you find yourself in this situation.
You probably already knew this, but if you want to see a list of all of the startup programs that run when Windows starts, you can simply go to the MSCONFIG tool and click on the Startup tab! Here you can enable or disable startup programs easily. You can read my previous article that explains how to use MSCONFIG in detail.
It’s worth noting that in Windows 8 and Windows 10, the Startup tab has been removed from MSCONFIG and is now included in the Task Manager. You can get to the Task Manager by simply right-clicking on the Start button in Windows 8 or Windows 10 and choosing Task Manager from the list.
Knowing which programs run at startup can be very useful for debugging all sorts of performance issues related to your PC. One recommendation I always give is to make a list of all of the startup programs enabled while your computer is running normally. That way, if your computer is running slow later on, you can always go back to MSCONFIG and uncheck anything that wasn’t originally listed.
Also, there are times when technical support may request a list of startup programs in order to diagnose an issue with your computer. Generating a list and emailing them could save you a lot of time and prevent someone from having to connect remotely to your computer, which I never prefer since I don’t trust anyone else having access to my computer.
In addition to the task manager looking a bit nicer and cleaner in Windows 8 and Windows 10, it also forgoes the checkboxes and gives you a column called Startup Impact to help you gauge how that startup item affects the boot time.
You can actually generate a list of all the startup programs in Windows using the command prompt or PowerShell and save the list as a text file or an HTML document. Follow the steps below.
Command Prompt
Step 1: Open the command prompt by going to Start, Run and typing in CMD. If you are unfamiliar with the command prompt, feel free to read my command prompt beginner’s guide first.
Step 2: Now type in the following WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) command at the prompt and press Enter.
wmic startup get caption,command
You should now see a list of all the applications along with their paths that run at Windows startup.
If you want more information, you can also just type wmic startup and you’ll get a few extra fields like Location, UserSID and User.
Step 3: If you want to export the list out as a text file, type in the following command:
wmic startup get caption,command > c:StartupApps.txt
And if you want to create an HTML file, just type this instead:
wmic startup get caption,command > c:StartupApps.htm
PowerShell
If you prefer to use the more modern and powerful PowerShell, the command below will give you pretty much the same results as the WMI command above.
Get-CimInstance Win32_StartupCommand | Select-Object Name, command, Location, User | Format-List
If you want to send the output of a PowerShell command to a text file, you can simply append the following part to the above command after Format-List.
| Out-File c:scriptstest.txt
Make sure to include the pipe symbol | that is at the very front. I actually prefer the output of PowerShell because the formatting is much easier to view in a text editor.
That’s about it. You should now have a list of startup programs that you can save and reference later. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!