Where’s Startup in Windows 10?
QI followed your advice to Frank Long (Problems Solved, Issue 511) and downloaded Keyboard Indicator. I ran it and it worked well. I thought no more about it until I restarted my PC recently, when I noticed Keyboard Indicator’s little icons had disappeared from my notification area.
I launched Keyboard Indicator again and looked through its settings for a ‘Launch with Windows’ option, but could not find one. So I thought I’d add a shortcut to the Startup folder on the Start menu — but it’s not there! I haven’t tried to do this since I upgraded from Windows 7 last year, so I don’t know if this is something Microsoft has removed from Windows 10 or whether it’s just missing from my machine? Either way, how do I make this or any other program launch when Windows 10 starts? Pete Baxter
AThe Startup folder isn’t missing only from your machine: it’s no longer part of the Windows 10 Start menu. It didn’t exist in Windows 8 or 8.1 either but then, of course, neither did the Start menu itself.
You’d have to ask Microsoft why the Startup folder isn’t shown on the resurrected Windows 10 Start menu, but it does still exist and works exactly as before. However, it’s now hidden, so you need to know where to go in order to use it. In fact, there are two Startup folders — one for all users and one for only the current user. So, if you place a shortcut in the Start folder for all users, then the related program will launch for all users; put it in the one for the current user, and only that user will benefit.
To view either you’ll first need to make sure that system files are displayed. Press Windows key+e to launch File Explorer, select the View tab, click Options, select the View tab again, then scroll down to select ‘Show hidden files, folders and drives’, then click OK. Now, for all users, navigate to C:\programdata\microsoft\ Windows\start Menu\programs\ Startup. For the current user only, the path you need to follow is C:\users\ [Username]\appdata\roaming\ Microsoft\windows\start Menu\ Programs\startup.
Now, to have a program launch with Windows, just drag and drop a program shortcut into the relevant folder (see screenshot below left). To create a program shortcut, right-click it and then choose ‘Create shortcut’.
Finally, it’s worth knowing that there are a couple of shortcuts to the two Startup folders, which are worth memorising for future tweaks. For quick access to the all-users version, press Windows key+r, type shell:common startup and press Enter (see screenshot below right). For the current user Startup, type shell:common startup and press Enter.