I didn't order that

New York Times technology writer David Pogue blogs about software applications that start themselves unbidden when the Windows computer they're on is booted. This phenomenon bugs me no end, and I regularly use the msconfig utility to turn off these startup programs, which run invisibly and needlessly use up system resources. To do that, I click Start, then Run, type msconfig, and click OK. The startup applications are on, yes, the Startup tab.

Looking at my msconfig list, I see that my computer hosts startup applications for many mainstream programs, including Acrobat, AIM, TiVo Desktop, QuickTime, iTunes and the Microsoft programs Money and Works. There also are startup apps for various hardware devices I have installed, printers and external hard drives and network adapters and so forth. I turn 'em all off, and my computer runs faster.

There also are startup apps for many programs I don't recognize. I suspect various Web sites I visit have installed some of these without my knowledge, which is truly scary.

This is crazy. As I've noted before, what I know about designing operating systems I could fit in my little fingernail, but it seems to me fairly basic and urgent that OSes shouldn't let unknown programs install themselves willy nilly. And that consumers should be able to choose whether they'd like for memory-hogging programs they don't use to start themselves.