Optimizing Proton VPN startup

VPN
1

I’ve found a solution for the lag in launching Proton VPN on Windows 11.

The “Start on Boot” option in settings is absurdly slow, and causes some chaos every time you reboot your machine. The Task Scheduler solution found in various places on tech sites isn’t great for prioritizing startup applications either. It’s quicker than the “Start on Boot” option, but still many programs start before any applications in the scheduler take effect, even those that are indicated to launch at machine startup. This, of course, makes no sense, but Microsoft implements dozens of solutions that do the same things. Launching startup applications is just one more example. Here’s another ill-advised “solution” Microsoft has provided us: Go to C:\Users\ObsidianK\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and add a link to a program here. Don’t do this, cause no one will ever think to look here for troubleshooting (like stopping these damn app from launching every time you boot) Though this would work well for you evil little pricks looking to drive your fathers-in-law crazy.

My solution: Place an entry in the Windows Registry to run at startup.

WARNING: This is only for advanced Windows users. Seriously, you can mess up your whole machine fiddling with RegEdit. For those not experienced with this tool, either walkaway or do a backup of the registry before you change anything, and save it to a place where you’ll remember. Perhaps not the desktop.

The Solution:

  1. Open Registry Editor:
    1. [Win Key]-R
    2. Type “RegEdit”
    3. [Enter]
  2. Find this Registry Key: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run”
  3. Add a string: Name: “Proton VPN” Value Data: “C:\Program Files\Proton\VPN\ProtonVPN.Launcher.exe”
    1. right-click on the white space under the existing entries on the Registry Key.
    2. Click “new”
    3. Click “String Value”
    4. An ‘ab’ (string) registry will be created labelled “New Value #1” or similar.
    5. It’s less confusing if you right-click on the red & black ‘ab’ icon and select “Modify”
    6. Fill out this form: Value Name = “Proton VPN” Value Data=“C:\Program Files\Proton\VPN\ProtonVPN.Launcher.exe”
    7. Click “ok” (Of course, make sure this is the location where the Proton VPN Launcher app is located.)
  4. If you have a Task Scheduler entry for Proton VPN, disable or delete it. I’d disable until you’re sure this registry solution is working fine.

This prioritizes ProtonVPN launch much better than creating a Task Scheduler entry to start at machine startup, which itself is quicker than relying on the “Launch at Startup” checkbox within the Proton VPN application.

Note to Proton management: Please pass this along to the development management. This should replace whatever solution is currently given for the “Run at Startup” checkbox. The current solution is very slow and causes problems for users. Test the hell out of this before putting into production. Messing with Windows Registry is risky.

2

Thanks for sharing, we’ve made sure to pass on your feedback to the dev team, as requested.

3

YMMV here, you haven’t given any computer specs nor even what OS you’re on. I have multiple PCs; some struggle on startup, some don’t.

4

This post dissappeared from my view so I created another entry. It has more detailed information on how to do this correctly. This is not the correct technical solution. The optimal solution is only available to your programmers.

5

Fair point. First sentence edited.
No idea what YMMV means.

6

My more complete post is now gone as well. I’m not going to rewrite it.

7

It’s approved now, it was auto-filtered.