Startup Guard XP

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009

While first impressions can be misleading, this utility to manage start-up programs leaves a bad second and third impression. Startup Guard XP has a tiny interface that's hard to read. In addition to a display window, there are four buttons. With so few choices, the program should be self-explanatory. Unfortunately, it's not. There's no Help file, but going by the hard-to-decipher English in the publisher's description and on his Web site, it might not be of much assistance anyway.

At program launch, you're shown the list of the first button, Current Startup Status. The list of start-up entries is on a dark gray background and the lines dividing them run over the text. The three dividing lines in green, yellow, and red seem to indicate something, but the labels (Safe Lane, Medium Lane, and High Lane) aren't very descriptive. There are check boxes next to each entry, but the first box we unchecked led to a program failure. A dialog box appeared requesting that we submit a record of what happened with the program prior to the error. If we provided the information, we were promised a free subscription of the program. We declined.

When the program was re-started, the item we tried to uncheck was still on the list, but it also showed up in the list displayed when the second button, Disabled Programs, was clicked. The third button, Appeared in Startup, was blank. The fourth turned the program's monitoring on and off, but it wasn't clear what notification would be activated since none occurred during our tests.

Although the publisher promotes the usage of Startup Guard XP by the novice user, we feel they'd be completely lost. And, while advanced users might understand this program, they'll probably have little need of it.

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Publisher's Description

From AjayWarez:

Startup Guard XP is a system protection software that is designed to provide startup security from different programs / hackers / keyloggers / spywares. It disables startup attempts itself without need to click or watch see it once, stop seeing anonyings. It's a must have program for newbie computer owner. When a new computer user starts knowing programs. He downloads / installs programs for knowing what they do. He then notice that so many icons showing in the system tray.

Only 2 or 3 necessary programs have to start with system. Like antivirus, spyware scanner, and Bluetooth software. If anyone suggest him to install startup guard, he will feel very good to see the system change. He will choose only preferred applications to load and if he installs more applications, Startup Guard will blocks its startup entries automatically after showing a message. Register it with username: test, password: 5D27-1644-1E05-370. Version 1.3 is now free and key supplied.

What's new in this version: Version 1.3 is now free and key supplied.

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