OpenOffice.org/Quickstarter

A quickstarter is a feature that can be found in the system tray (at the bottom right of the computer, along with the clock etc. (at least on MS Windows Operating Systems). Basically it serves to accelerate the process of starting programs such as OpenOffice.org. In OpenOffice.org it typically reduces the time taken to load the initial document from maybe 50 seconds down to 15 or 20 seconds.

The downside of having it constantly monitoring your computer could be that it uses memory, which on a low cost computer may be better used by other, more crucial, programs. Nevertheless any current operating system has virtual memory support, and programs are swapped to disk when they are inactive. In these cases no resources will be wasted if we have enough swap space.

It is started by default unless you indicate that you do not want the quickstarter feature when you first install the program.

Using and removing the quickstarter

If you right click on the OpenOffice.org logo (the seagull on ocean logo in the system tray) you get a list of options to create new OpenOffice.org documents, or to open a template, you also get an opportunity to open an existing document, of any format. At the bottom you can see options to exit the quick starter, and above it there should be a tick where it asks whether you want to load OpenOffice.org during system startup. If you click to exit the quickstarter, then when you restart the computer the quickstarter will re-appear. To make it go away for good you must click where it asks if you want to load OpenOffice.org during system startup, so that the tick disappears. If you hold the mouse over the quickstarter a piece of text indicates OpenOffice.org, version, and quickstarter. If you left click a box appears offering options to open documents, templates or samples, create new documents, or explore the My Documents folder. This is the best way to take advantage of the features the quickstarter offers.

If you want quickstarter to reappear

Windows: Find the quickstart executable (in a typical Windows install, it would be at C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\program), and launch it.

You should then see an icon in the System Tray. Right click the System Tray icon and select "Load OpenOffice.org During System Start-Up".