Why do the same thing every morning when I could spend that time on something else?
I don't think this is the same thing as a loss of attention span
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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It's more of an efficiency thing for power users. And it's on by default so in that sense the issue is not the function, the issue is the default, and that's up to Microsoft.
Back when starting your computer and launching programs took a good chunk of your first hour at work (this was about 10-15 years ago for me), having startup programs meant you could just
- hit the button
- get coffee
- chat with colleagues
- login
- get coffee
- review the incoming paperwork
- get coffee
- start the one program that didn't autolaunch
- get coffee
- actually start doing something on your pc
those people in sitcoms chilling at coffee machines were probably waiting for their PC to start. Launching corporate software took ages, having them started neatly by windows saved you from having to start the next program when the previous was finally launched after a few minutes.
I have to wait 8 minutes after windows login for everything to start, due to the layers of security Software on my, fairly powerful, workplace pc. And after that another minute for Outlook to be ready.
Windows is so painfully slow after you get used to Linux
Oh Yes, we had Linux for years on our work Laptops and it was so much faster. I miss it so much, not only for the speed.
Autostart as an option is good.
Not being able to block apps from autostarting is unacceptable.
Looking at you android, fuck right off with that shit.
Old versions of LineageOS had the ability to deny autostart permissions to specific apps, but they dropped it at some point due to how Android's design made it pointless. It turns out there are so many hooks for automatically running an activity, and so many major apps hook into all of them, that denying the "start at boot" permission did nothing in practice. Apps would launch their background services anyway when you first connected to WiFi, plugged in your phone, or any of a plethora of other triggers that weren't covered by the setting.
Speak for yourself. I was all up in those msconfig.exe guts
Saaaaame
riiight, AUTOEXEC.BAT is totally responsible for 3sec attention spans! /s
Delete your init system and tell me this again.
Having some information screen computers start on there own after power on is a nice feature. Why Windows ended up implementing it in like 4 different ways is beyond me. And why it's a default for each app is probably to gather your information and track you. It's always best to turn it off, this will free up the resources of the apps you do want to use. And like you said it ain't ad much work
4?
Isn't it like 34 now?
I've supported Windows since 3.1, had the Resource Kit book all tabbed, dog-eared, marked up, etc, and I still can't name all the ways something can be auto-started.
The Sysinternals Suite has Autoruns which shows most of them, though it's very easy to break Explorer or other Windows UI elements by disabling the wrong thing in it.
Oh yea, I use that and others such as Nir Sofers tools (those are some that everything be should have).
Surprisingly msconfig does a pretty good job these days.
I also use Startup Delayer on all machines I build. It makes it easier for the average person to see most of what's going to startup, and to disable it without deleting.
I’ve supported Windows since 3.1,
I am curious as to what possesses someone to "support" Windows?
Getting a pc to then not having it do the automation for me is like getting a 4x4 pickup truck to just get to the office job and the car is being parked there the whole time.
I just thought of something hella funny to do but not sure if it's even possible...
Can you have a .BAT file run at start? If so, Imma make one that executes the shutdown command then have it run at boot on my sister's machine. 😈
crt brightness could be brought down to zero back in the day.
Can that not be done with LCDs and OLEDs? Turn off the backlighting at least?
I guess they can. I can with my current laptop but im sure I have had some that won't go below a certain low leve but could do it with mine. Im not sure modern ones would keep the setting on restart of the pc or screen though. With the old crts they would stay blank until you moved the little dial that a lot of people were unaware of.
On my old phone I wrote an app to write screen brightness values directly to the underlying Linux device. It bottomed out at either 3 or 5, which was still way below what the normal brightness slider allowed but it seems there's a hardcoded non-zero lower limit.
Whoever hardcoded that probably was a victim of the prank one time too often. 😔
An oldie but goodie. enjoy the giggles
What about when the OS itself started auto-starting???
Bring back using the Bios to boot DOS from a floppy disk and then typing win to start Windows!
probably the first indication of enshitification. I remember adoring the next step because of how I could setup the doc and pull programs I wanted to autostart to the right. Thing is when programs would install and set themselves to auto start as part of it and as the process of stopping them from auto started became more and more obfuscated. ugh.
This is just telling that op has a very narrow understanding of computers likely only their own usecase
Dougherty has entered the chat.
Alt Universe: "My name is Edward Snowden and oopsie I forgot to start the anonymization program and now CIA agents are waiting for me at the airport"
Alt Universe: "All right, people, let's do this one last time. My name is Peter B. Parker. I was bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last twenty-two years I thought I was the one and only Spider-Man."