How do I stop Skype launching automatically when my PC starts?

Q I have a problem with Skype. The ‘Start Skype when I start Windows’ box is not ticked, but the program insists on launching every time I start up my PC.

This problem causes my computer to take longer to start up, which is very frustrating. Is there any other action that can be taken to stop it happening?

Alan Fletcher

A There are two possibilities here. First, some older versions of Skype suffered from a bug that caused precisely this problem. So, we would advise checking that you are using an up-to-date version of the program. The latest version of Skype is 5.0: if yours is below version 4.0, we would advise upgrading.

Assuming your Skype application is current, then you will need to remove a tick from a second checkbox (because Skype would really rather you didn’t log out).

Launch Skype, open the Tools menu, click Options and ensure that the tick is removed from the ‘Start Skype when I start Windows’ box. Now click Save and – this is the important bit – log out of Skype by opening the Skype menu and clicking Sign Out.

The ‘Welcome to Skype’ sign-in window should now appear. The tick box at the bottom, which uses slightly different wording to the first, is the cause of your annoyance.

Click to remove the tick from this second ‘Start Skype when computer starts’ box. We would also advise removing the tick from the ‘Sign me in when Skype starts’ box, whose effect is to make this particular dialogue box hard to reach.