How Do I Get a Program to Auto-start When I Sign In to Windows?

The right shortcut in the right place.

There are many ways to start programs automatically when Windows boots or when you sign in. Most of them are obscure registry settings used by applications when they’re installed. Fortunately, there’s one easy approach.

Auto-start

You can have a program start when you sign in to Windows by using the hidden Startup folder. Put a shortcut to the program there, and Windows will run it automatically each time you log in. It’s simple, safe, and doesn’t require editing the registry.

The Startup folder

There is a special folder called Startup. Any programs or shortcuts in it are run each time you sign in.

In older versions of Windows, you could navigate to that folder on the Start menu and add shortcuts as needed. The folder still exists, but it’s hidden.

There are several ways to examine the Startup folder.

• In the Run dialog box (on the alternate Start menu, or opened by typing Windows Key + R), run1 the command “shell:startup“.
• In the Run dialog box, run the command: “%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup“. (%APPDATA% is shorthand for “C:\users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming”, and will automatically have the correct “%USERNAME%”.)
• In the Run dialog box, run the command: “C:\users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup“.
• In Windows File Explorer, navigate to “C:\users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup,” replacing “%USERNAME%” with your Windows log-in name.

Regardless of which technique you use, the result will be a Windows File Explorer window opened on the Startup sub-menu.

As you can see, I have several things in there.

Installed programs that automatically run something on startup often place their shortcuts in that folder. The “Cryptomator” shortcut you see there was added by Cryptomator’s setup program. Others, such as “AutoHotkeyLeo.ahk – Shortcut”, I created manually.

Creating a Startup shortcut

Once in the Startup folder in Windows File Explorer, you can add a shortcut to any program (or folder2) using whatever technique you like.

One approach is to right-click in the right-hand pane beneath any pre-existing shortcuts and click on New and then Shortcut.

In the resulting dialog, enter the name of the program you want to run. This name can be a full path to the program (use the Browse button to locate that file), or, in the case of many Windows programs, can simply be the name of the program. Below, I’ve entered cmd, the Windows Command Prompt.

Click Next. In the next dialog, you can change the name displayed for the shortcut, if you’d like to. (Unless you’re regularly examining the contents of the Startup folder, you’ll rarely, if ever, see the shortcut name.) Click Finish.

That’s it. You now have a shortcut in the Startup folder.

Now, the next time you sign in to your computer, the new shortcut will run. In this example, that means a new instance of the Windows Command Processor will open.

Using the Startup folder

Any shortcut you place in the Startup folder will automatically run when you sign in to your system. You might have it:

• Open a document.
• Open a program.
• Run a script or batch file to perform more complex operations.

My use of AutoHotKey is a good example. I use AutoHotKey to create keyboard macros — short key sequences that are automatically expanded into longer text. I want that running all the time, so I place a shortcut to the AutoHotKey script — “AutoHotkeyLeo.ahk”– in the startup folder. That way, when I sign in to Windows, AutoHotKey automatically runs the script.

Note: the Startup folder is only one place where startup items are found. As I mentioned earlier, there are other complex approaches (typically involving the registry) for more complex situations than just when you sign in. The SysInternals tool autoruns will show all of them.