Look in these folders:

• C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Un-check undesired programs in Start > Search > Msconfig > Startup .

You can also use WinPatrol 2010 or Sysinternals Autoruns to make the settings.

Steve Winograd, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (Desktop Experience)

FIrst, get the process id with TASKLIST

tasklist /fi "imagename eq java.exe"

output :

Image Name          PID    Session Name  Session# Mem Usage Status
=================== ====== ============= ======== ============
Java.exe            1060   RDP-Tcp#8     0        81 408 Ko

the use TASKKILL <pid>

taskkill /pid 1060

or directly

taskkill /F /FI "IMAGENAME eq java.exe"

Solution

Here's a template you can use:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\whatever.exe]
"Debugger"="systray.exe"

To revert back you just need to remove the registry key:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\whatever.exe]

Note Administrator rights (or enough rights to access the related registry key) are required in order to apply the changes.

How it works

The Image File Execution Options registry key was designed, among other things, to automatically launch a debugger when an application starts. While the debugger would start the application and attach, you can specify just any executable which will be run instead, thus overriding the original one.

What about systray.exe? It's a little stub program which was first introduced with Windows 95, and used to handle the system notification icons. It's not really used any more in the newer Windows versions, and it was mostly kept for backward compatibility reasons. It has no user interface, and doesn't do anything noticeable besides refreshing the notification area when started.

Remarks

• Changes are applied immediately, and work regardless of the Windows 7 edition installed.

• If you want to display a standard error message instead, replace systray.exe with %1 (any non-existing executable will do as well). Displaying a custom message would require creating either a custom program or script, and launch that.

Known limitations

• Since the method is based on the program name, one could workaround it by renaming the executable to something. That can easily be avoided by making sure users the program is located in a directory which they don't have full control of (e.g. C:\Program Files).

• One could copy the whole program folder elsewhere (e.g. on the desktop) and then rename the executable. Some programs might not run that way, but others could. To avoid this, make sure users have no write permissions in their profile folders unless otherwise required.

References

• How to add, modify, or delete registry subkeys and values by using a .reg file
• How to turn off the Windows Update feature in Windows XP

From Windows Seven Forum:

1) This is not a problem. It's actually a good thing because Windows is waiting for programs to shut down and disk buffers to be flushed to disk. If it didn't do that you'd be at nasty risk for data losses.

2) Some programs do take a while to close off... they have to save settings, close disk files, shut down network ports, release memory, etc. This too is perfectly normal behaviour.

Inside windows when you do a Shutdown every running program receives a WM_CLOSE message which initiates program shutdown. Right after that they receive a WM_POWER message telling them the system is about to shut down... if the program needs more time, it can delay answering the WM_POWER message and conduct it's business shutting down. When ALL programs have answered the WM_POWER message the system shuts off.

Really guys... this isn't something you should be worried about...