How is WinCompose being launched at startup?

[jerkstorecaller]

I use this tool once a month when I'm writing to an aunt, and wanted to stop it from running on launch. I see from searching old issues that you added an option in 0.9.7 to prevent launch on startup, that's great, I will be updating ASAP.

But out of curiosity, and to learn about Windows and how to control what runs on it, I'd like to ask my initial question: how does WinCompose run at startup?

1. I opened Task Manager -> Startup, where I usually disable autorun of certain apps, and Wincompose is not in that list.
2. I looked at installer.iss, and it says it writes to the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and possibly HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, but I didn't see any WinCompose entries there.
3. installer.iss also adds the shortcut to {userstartup} which according to the Innosetup's website is "the path to the Startup folder on the Start Menu", aka C:\Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. But once again, it's not there.

So how is this tool being launched on my old version?

P.S. do you recommend any tool that would show me a list of commands being run at startup, from ALL possible sources, so I'm fully aware of what's running on my system?

[samhocevar]

Since version 0.9.0, WinCompose is launched through the Windows Task Scheduler. This is because it is the only way I know of launching a GUI application with elevated privileges. Elevated privileges are not strictly required, but are necessary when the user wants to type characters in an elevated application.

Prior to that (up to version 0.8.2), you would find a shortcut to WinCompose in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup as you were expecting.

Unfortunately I am really not familiar enough with Windows to recommend a tool that would do what you ask.

[PrincessRTFM]

Unfortunately I am really not familiar enough with Windows to recommend a tool that would do what you ask.

I am! I personally use the SysInternals utility Autoruns for this, which does indeed show even scheduled tasks. And much, much, much more. It takes a minute every time you launch it because it's scanning every single method of autolaunching applications, but the list populates in realtime as it does so.

[romibi]

Oh … I didn't expect you to use the Windows Task Scheduler … I knew that is a possibility but I can't think of any other tool, except auto updaters and antivirus tools, that uses that by default.

Also I would think that without explicit user confirmation no tool should just automatically startup with elevated privileges …

I think it would be nice to have it as an option, but the default should be either via the Startup-Folder Shortcut (open "shell:startup" instead of typing/navigating the long path) or via the registry …

[goyalyashpal]

just commenting here to save cause comments here contain so much useful information