Downtime

Reader James Walton from Newport writes: "A friend just got his new Windows system and bought a bunch of software to go along with it. He installed everything, then complained that when he started his computer up, the screen was so cluttered he was having a hard time finding his desktop. "Somewhat to my amazement, I discovered that every time the computer booted up, half a dozen or so program groups opened up on the desktop, and all sorts of programs were spilling their menu contents onto the screen. After some poking around, I discovered that he had installed everything - everything - into his StartUp folder. I asked him why he installed all his programs in there. He said, "Well, I wanted to be sure they'd start up when I needed them, so..."