How do I disable Sonic Update Manager during startup?

This is a fairly common issue and is usually because you have some kind of HP Printer installed, or you are running some antivirus/antimalware software that is "protecting" your system from malicious software making changes to your system - and it is also preventing you from making changes.

Do you now or have you ever had any kind of HP printer installed?

Do you now or have you ever had any kind of Norton/Symantec products installed?

Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation:  McAfee, Symantec, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Panda, Trend Micro, CA, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.

You could try to troubleshoot it by seeing how things work in Safe Mode - that might work since whatever your unspecified antimalware programs should not load in Safe Mode.

Here are some ideas that should always work:

You can download Autoruns and use it to disable your unnecessary startup items and also delete them entirely when you are sure you don't need them so your msconfig looks nice and neat.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Autoruns installs no startup items and runs on demand.  It looks a little intimidating sometimes since it displays so much stuff.

Launch Autoruns.exe and wait for it to finish populating the list of entries.

When Autoruns is finished scanning your system, it will say "Ready" at the bottom left corner.  Autoruns can be a little intimidating at first if you have never see it before since it displays a lot of information.  You are really only interested in a couple sections.

Look at the Logon, Everything and Services tab for the things you want to disable and uncheck the items.

You could also download and install CCleaner:

http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

CCleaner will let you manage most Startup items and also do some other cleanup oriented operations.  Some people will recommend you not to use the registry functions in CCleaner so avoid those features for now.  I have no issue with it myself, but it is sometimes a contentious issue I prefer to avoid whenever possible!

You can uninstall CCleaner later if you don't like it.

You can disable startup items, see how things look and if you want - totally delete unneeded startup items, or just leave them disabled while you continue troubleshooting. 

Note that disabling things does not uninstall anything and if there is a problem, you can just enable the item again.  If you are sure you don't want it at all, then you can delete it.

Remember that msconfig is not a startup manager.  msconfig is a troubleshooting tool.

I am also dismayed (and so should be the MS Answers "owners") but not surprised that the Microsoft engaged Support Engineer "expert" does not seem to know anything about this issue and is sending you on another one of their wild goose chases.  Sad, sad, sad.

Hi M J Woodson,

1. Do you get any error code?
2. Are you the administrator of the computer?
3. Have you made any changes on the computer?

You need to be logged in as the Administrator of the computer if you want to make any changes to the Microsoft System Configuration Utility.

Method-

You need to refer the steps to disable Sonic Update Manager on startup-

a) Make sure that your account has administrator privileges.

b) Click on “Start” and select “Run”.

c) Now, type “msconfig” (without the quotations) and hit “Enter”.

d) Click on the “Startup” and then uncheck the boxes next to the items, starting with-

SgtraySonic update managerIsuspmIssch

d) Click on “Ok” and then restart the computer and check.

Hope this helps!!