Fixes – There Are No Startup Items to Display in Task Manager

When you open your Task Manager, you can see nothing here except a message that tells you “there are no startup items to display”. That’s where the issue lies in. We need to figure out why it happens and how to resolve this. On MiniTool Website , this post will answer what you care about.

There Are No Startup Items to Display in Task Manager

In Task Manager, you can see what items running or not running on your computer. It offers some information about the programs running on a computer, including name of running processes, CPU and GPU, commit charge, I/O details, and Windows services. Besides, you have limited control over those running tasks.

In the Startup tab, you will see which programs are set to start automatically, launched from your startup folders, when you turn on your computer. Most programs will ask for your permission to be among the startup list.

If you still have questions about the startup programs and folders, these two articles will be helpful:

Some people reported that startup apps not appearing on Task Manager. That’s could happen when the Startup folder or the Common Startup folder inadvertently gets deleted or corrupted.

But before you finalize the culprit, you can check if you indeed have startups or not. Just go to the Search box and type Startup to open Startup Apps .

Or you can check that via your Startup folders.

Step 1: Open Run by pressing the Win + R keys.

Step 2: Type shell:startup or shell:common startup and press Enter to launch the startup folder.

Step 3: When a window pop up, you can check if your preset startup folders have been deleted. If yes, you can go to the next part and follow the steps to fix the “Startup apps not showing” issue.

Apart from the startup folders, you can also check if some system bugs or glitches occur when you find your Task Manager Startup tab empty. If your computer performs slowly and too much loading needs to be prepared, you may need to refresh your computer and try Task Manager again.

If you have some third-party programs available to start up automatically, it is possible that Windows Firewall stops such behavior for some security consideration.

Of course, other reasons are possible, such as outdated Windows, malware and virus attack, software conflict, damaged system file, or corrupted Task Manager.

Then you will have a full step-by-step guide to fixing “there are no startup items to display”.

Fix "There Are No Startup Items to Display" Error

Fix 1: Restart System

To avoid some glitches and bugs in your system, you may start from the easiest way when the Startup folder is empty – restart the system. Restarting your device is a panacea for most temporary little issues. It is worth trying!

After rebooting your PC, please open your Task Manager to see if your Startup folder is still empty.

Fix 2: Restart File Explorer

If the last method can’t resolve your issue, you can check if some temporary bugs exist in your Task Manager. To fix these little issues, you can restart File Explorer first, if that is useless, you can try other fixes.

Step 1: Press the Win + X key to open the quick access menu and choose Task Manager from the list.

Step 2: Scroll down to find Windows Explorer and click on it.

Step 3: Then choose Restart from the right bottom corner.

Fix 3: Create a New Startup Folder

If your Startup folder not show up in your File Explorer – being deleted unwittingly, your operating will not be able to identify any of the startup apps, and hence the “there are no startup items to display” error message will occur. Therefore, you can create a new startup folder by the following steps.

Step 1: Open your File Explorer and go to the location as below.

There are now two Startup folder locations, please check them both.

Current Users Startup folder location

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

All Users Startup folder location

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Step 2: Check if the Startup folder is listed in the location, if not, please right-click on the blank and choose New .

Step 3: Then choose Folder from the drop-down list and name it Startup .

Then restart your PC and check if your startup items come back in your Task Manager.

Fix 4: Add Application Shortcut to the Startup Folder

Another method to fix the Startup apps not showing issue is to add application shortcut to the Startup folder if you can remember which programs are among the Startup list or you know what apps you want to run during boot.

Here is the way.

Step 1: Press the Windows key and type the program name in it.

Step 2: Under Best match , right-click on the result and choose Open file location from the context menu.

Note : If the menu doesn’t show you the Open file location option, that means the program can’t run during the startup.

Step 3: Then you will jump to its file location. When you locate it, right-click on it and choose Copy .

Step 4: Press the Windows + R key to open the Run dialogue box and type shell:startup to enter the Startup folder.

Step 5: When you get into the Startup folder, right-click on the blank and choose Paste to add the application.

At last, restart your PC and open your Task Manager to see if the issue resolved.

Fix 5: Perform a Check Disk Scan

The last methods target troubleshooting corrupted or missing Startup folder, if that can’t resolve your issue, then the culprit may be the system issue. here, it is advised to perform a scan with some useful tools.

Check Disk Utility can be used to scan your hard drive for file system errors and the specific steps are as follows.

Step 1: Press the Win + S key to open the Search box and input cmd to run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 2: Then input chkdsk C: /f /r /x and press Enter when the window pop up.

After that, it will start the scan and you need to wait the check process finishes. Then restart your Windows to see if the issue has been fixed.

There is another method to perform Check Disk Utility via your File Explorer. Just open File Explorer and right-click on the target disk to choose Properties . In the Tools tab, choose the Check button.

Fix 6: Perform DISM and SFC Tools

After performing Check Disk Utility, you can further analyze your system files and restore potential issues with DISM and SFC tools. These two tools also need to run within your Command Prompt.

To perform SFC tool, you need to enter the command - sfc /scnnow and when the verification is up to 100%, you will see the scan results.

To perform DISM tool, you can enter the following commands and press Enter after every one of them.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Then please restart your PC and try your Task Manager again to see if your startups appear.

Fix 7: Run the System Maintenance Troubleshooter

If you are still struggling with the “there are no startup items to display” error message, you can try the Windows 10 built-in System Maintenance troubleshooter. It can help fix broken desktop shortcuts, unused icons, disk volume errors, and startup items.

Step 1: Type Control Panel in the Search box and click Control Panel in the search results to launch it.

Step 2: Change View by: to Small icons and choose Troubleshooting .

Step 3: Choose the View all link at the top left corner and click on System Maintenance to run it.

Step 4: When a window pop up, click Advanced and uncheck the Apply repairs automatically box. Then click Next .

Step 5: Then you can follow the on-screen instructions for any found issues to perform the actions you want. Or you can choose the option of Try troubleshoot as an administrator to do another try.

Wait for the process to complete and then restart your PC.

Fix 8: Temporarily Disable the Windows Defender

As we mentioned, in case your Windows Firewall mistakenly block the startup program, you can temporarily disable your Windows Defender and then re-enable it. if you find that works, you can allow the program through Windows Firewall .

Step 1: Open your Control Panel and choose Windows Defender Firewall .

Step 2: Click the Turn Windows Defender Firewall on and off option from the left panel.

Step 3: Under public and private network settings, check the Turn off Windows Defender Firewall (not recommended) boxes next to them and then click OK .

Then restart your PC to see if the issue has been resolved but remember, after that, you’d better turn on your Windows Firewall to protect your computer.

Back up Your Data

After the all above, hope your issue has been resolved. But once this error message - there are no startup items to display – is caused by virus attack or some system-related issue, it may be hard to recover and even some of your data will be lost.

Besides, if your Startup folder has been lost, with the above methods, it is time-consuming to re-add your startup items one by one. To avoid this condition, it is recommended to use a backup program – MiniTool ShadowMaker.

You can back up your data in a customized and regular way with the Schedule Settings and Backup Scheme option and restore your data quickily.

First of all, go to download and install the program and get a 30-day free trial version.

Free Download

Step 1: Open the program and choose Keep Trial .

Step 2: In the Backup tab, you can click the SOURCE section to choose what you want to back up and then click the DESTINATION section to choose where you want to back up to.

Step 3: Once you finish, click Back Up Now or Back Up Later to implement the process. You can start the delayed backup task on the Manage page.

If you want to restore your data, you can go to the Restore tab and all your backup tasks will show you here. Click on Restore to follow the on-screen instructions to finish that.

What should you do when there are no startup items to display on Task Manager? This article has given you a series of solutions. If you like it, you can share it on Twitter. Click to Tweet

Bottom Line:

If your Task Manager keeps giving you this odd error - there are no startup items to display, don’t need to be panic and you can try the above methods to fix it. For the most circumstances, the error message can be cast off with these tips but we still suggest to perform a backup plan for your important data regularly.

If you have encountered any issues when using MiniTool ShadowMaker, you can leave a message in the following comment zone and we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you may contact us via [email protected] .

Fixes – There Are No Startup Items to Display in Task Manager [MiniTool Tips]