How to start Windows Media Center without the startup animation?

Sure, it looks nice the first few times, but the startup animation for Windows Media Center in Windows 7 may be a little overly dramatic for everyday use. Besides, it takes up precious time when you want to get right down to watching TV or playing your music. Here's how to edit the shortcut to start up the application without the animated opening:

1. Right click the WMC shortcut on your desktop or taskbar (if you have it pinned there) and select Properties.
2. Click the Shortcut tab.
3. In the "Target" field, you'll see %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe
4. Leave that there, but right after it, type and space and then add /nostartupanimation
5. Click OK.

How to remove startup programs?

If your XP computer is taking way too long to boot up, it might be because you're loading too many programs at startup. Often applications that you install will take it upon themselves to add themselves to the startup list, even though you don't really want them to start automatically every time you boot the computer. Sometimes many of these apps are vendor "crapware" programs that you don't even want or use. Here's how to quickly prevent unwanted programs from starting up when you boot the system:

1. Click Start Run
2. In the Run box, type msconfig
3. In the System Configuration Utility interface, click the Startup tab
4. Uncheck the items you don't want to start when your computer starts
5. Click OK and then restart the computer to make the change take effect (or just exit without restarting if you want to reboot at a later time).