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Startup folders

Article detailing the mechanisms of malware persistence by use of Startup folders.
Startup folders

Every user account on a computer has Startup folders. The users account will start up any program or link to a program contained within those folders when that particular user logs in. An entry in the ‘All users’ account simply means that this then applies to all the user accounts on the computer.

The location of user Startup folders is:

C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\

The location of the ‘All users’ Startup folders is:

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

The startup folders can contain executable files or shortcuts to those files, it can also contain sub folders as detailed below:

Example of contents contained within the 'All users' startup (Start Menu) folder

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