Does Win 11 automatically disable startup apps?

Hi everybody,

Last week I kept my desktop PC off for about 4 days, which is quite unusual for me.

Yesterday when I turned it back on, I was surprised to see that not one but several important startup apps did not start with Windows.
Those apps include Everything Search, Simple Sticky Notes, TranslucentTB and maybe others.
All those apps usually start with Windows with no issues at all. Either because they're in the startup folder, or because they have a "Start with Windows" setting.
Other startup apps did start with Windows.

I also noticed that the Samsung Magician icon (which I always keep on my taskbar) had been moved to the "hidden taskbar icons" area.

So with all that stuff, I started thinking that maybe Windows 11 was behind all this, automatically doing all those things "for my own good" without asking me first.

Since I'm a grown-up and able to make my own decisions, I'd like to utterly prevent Win 11 from doing that kind of stuff. I was perfectly happy with Win 7, and I don't want Win 11 to do anything like that without my consent. Can this be achieved somehow?

Thanks in advance!

No, Windows did not prevent your apps from running at startup.

I've never had Windows disable any of my startup apps or programs. If you haven't done it yet, try restarting the computer and see if they load.

Thanks for your replies.
If Win 11 didn't do anything on purpose, then there's something wrong here.
The PC was properly shut off, and this was a cold boot. So everything should have started up smoothly.
The mere fact that it didn't, even only once, looks like a problem to me.
Everything will probably be fine at the next reboot. But why did that happen?

Also, in Settings > Apps > Startup, I have some double (even triple) entries for some apps, for unknown reasons. They all point to the same exact physical location. I guess that isn't normal either:

Jose Hidalgo said:

The PC was properly shut off, and this was a cold boot. So everything should have started up smoothly.

Click to expand...

Windows hasn't done a fresh boot since windows 8 with the shutdown command. The only way to do a full system fresh boot is to do a restart. This is because fast startup is enabled by default. I am not sure why your startup items got disabled, but it most likely wasnt windows doing something on its own, and more likely you need to do a fresh restart to clear out some buggyness.

Jose Hidalgo said:

Thanks for your replies.
If Win 11 didn't do anything on purpose, then there's something wrong here.
The PC was properly shut off, and this was a cold boot. So everything should have started up smoothly.
The mere fact that it didn't, even only once, looks like a problem to me.
Everything will probably be fine at the next reboot. But why did that happen?

Also, in Settings > Apps > Startup, I have some double (even triple) entries for some apps, for unknown reasons. They all point to the same exact physical location. I guess that isn't normal either:

View attachment 89882

Click to expand...

You haven't restarted yet? Probably the first thing i would have done.

andrew129260 said:

Windows hasn't done a fresh boot since windows 8 with the shutdown command. The only way to do a full system fresh boot is to do a restart. This is because fast startup is enabled by default. I am not sure why your startup items got disabled, but it most likely wasnt windows doing something on its own, and more likely you need to do a fresh restart to clear out some buggyness.

Click to expand...

Fast start is on by default? Il need to check that, Ive never turned it off and its always been off.

ShamrockRig said:

Fast start is on by default? Il need to check that, Ive never turned it off and its always been off.

Click to expand...

Fast Startup is enabled by default if your computer is capable of hibernation.
Also (applies to 11 as well):

Ah nah never had a pc that wasn't a laptop that had that. Sleep Shutdown and restart is all we got now! So most a laptop thing, gotcha.

ShamrockRig said:

Ah nah never had a pc that wasn't a laptop that had that. Sleep Shutdown and restart is all we got now! So most a laptop thing, gotcha.

Click to expand...

Desktops are capable of hibernation as well. It's not just a laptop thing. See the fast startup link to read more about it.

I have disabled Fast Startup right from the start, so it can't be the culprit here.
(sorry it's in french, but you can see it's disabled - first checkbox)

If anybody is interested, in order to ensure that my Restarts and Shutdowns are absolute [with no chance of Windows trying to reload apps that were running beforehand], I don't just disable Fast start, I use these shortcuts to Restart & Shutdown.


Neither of them needs Admin permission.

Because I already have ExplorerPatcher to enable my Taskbar Toolbar, I keep my shortcuts in there.



Denis

andrew129260 said:

Desktops are capable of hibernation as well. It's not just a laptop thing. See the fast startup link to read more about it.

Click to expand...

Oh i know they are, Its just generally a laptop thing most of the time, Not to say others don't use it but most posts or questions generally seem to be of those with laptops. But i gotcha