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How do things get into my System Tray?

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by djat

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I use a lap top running Win95v1. I have had it for several years. As time has gone by I seem to have gained more and more items in my Systray making boot-up longer and longer. If I press Ctrl Alt Del once immediately after boot up the following arelisted:

Explorer (Is this my Desktop?)
POp95 (I have no idea what this is!)
Loadwc (I have no idea what this is!)
Realplay (I know what this is, but do I need it in my systray?)
Directcd (This is to do with my parallell port CD writer)
Point32 (I can only guess it is to do with my mouse?)
Clikstat (Iomega Clik Disc Status)
Mswheel (Mouse?)
Systray (What is this?)
Csinject (What is this?)

Which of these do I need? If I don't need them, how do I get rid of them? (There is nothing in my Startup Directory) What really is the systray? Where is it hiding? How can I modify its contemts?

Many thanks

5 replies

by purple713

Most of those items are loaded from the Startup menu. Take anything that is in the startup menu out. Explorer you need running. That is what dispalys your icons. Loadwc is another one that you need. you can disable to clik drive status. Systray is where the time is dispayed (and other icons). CSinject I have never seen before.
The programs that are running in the sys tray are call TSR's (terminate and Stay Resident). Real Player: You can change the properties on that so that it doesn't load when you boot your system. MSwheel is a mouse function as well as Point32. MSWheel is external and Point32 is intergrate on the laptop. I hope this gives you some direction.

by mark fenwick

The only thing you usually really need is SysTray itself, though Explorer will always be displayed when viewed from the task menu as the Win95 start menu is an explorer shell.

Just about every other program is stuck in the Run key of your registry during installation 'for your convenience' by some piece of software that earnestly believes it is so import and to you that wont want to wait for it to load when you need it.

Some, like RealPlayer, may also be storing user profile type information about your environment for transmission to Real Networks the next time you are on-line and all these programs consume memory and increase startup time.

You can usually remove all of them, apart from SysTray and not notice any difference, otherthan a performance impovement. However, be aware that the sneaky ones, like RealPlayer, will put themselves back the next time you use them.

To remove them load RegEdit and, under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, navigate to Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, each item displayed in this location is program loaded at start-up.

Backup the Run key by exporting it to a file and then delete everything but the SysTray entry, 99% of the time everything will work fine and if anything does fail you can restore it from the export file.

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