Re-open programs after Windows restarts

Go to the download area of the Cache My Work website, at www.snipca.com/x1219, by clicking the link in the intro. When the page appears, click the green Download button on the right-hand side of the page. Click the ‘I Agree’ button in the pop-up window that appears and the download will start. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and choose the Desktop as the download destination. Firefox users should click Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder. Now locate and double-click the downloaded file (it’s called ‘CacheMyWork Setup v1.2.msi’) to run through the installation process. Just click Next at each turn, unless you have specific reason to change any of the default settings.

Launch Cache My Work from All Programs under the Start menu. After a brief pause it will display a list of running applications that it recognises and is able to restore. It is worth noting that Cache My Work is not able to restore any documents or files that may be open, just the associated programs and windows. However, in the case of certain programs, notably Internet Explorer and Firefox, the entire program state is automatically saved (meaning open browser tabs will be restored).

Cache My Work can also remember (and restore) any folders that may be open and displayed by Windows Explorer. To do this, click the Tools menu in the program and select Options before ticking the box labelled ‘Restore previous Explorer windows at next logon’.

Selecting the programs that should be reloaded after the PC is restarted is a simple matter of ticking the relevant boxes in the Your Cacheable Applications list. Click the Save button and restart Windows whenever you are ready. When Windows restarts the selected applications will be automatically launched (in addition to any programs that normally start with Windows). This happens only once: Cache My Work needs to be fired up each time its services are required.

If application boxes are ticked in Cache My Work and the program is closed before the Save button is pressed, a dialogue box will appear asking if the selected programs should be cached for reloading or not – just click Yes to enable automatic launching. One word of caution, though: because of the way that Cache My Work operates, by making temporary tweaks to the Windows Registry, any anti-virus or malicious software that you have installed may detect this as suspicious activity. However, it is safe to allow it to proceed.

As stated, in most cases open files and documents will not be reopened with applications relaunched by Cache My Work. However, there are a handful of exceptions to this. We’ve already pointed out that the Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers will relaunch with previously-open windows intact but for the full list, visit the Documentation section of the Cache My Work website (www.snipca.com/x1220).