garmin express can't be now disabled from launching at windows startup

While you are looking into this please consider have the background option within GE as disabled, or provide the reason why the default appears to be enabled.  I think if a survey was taken, you would find few if any individuals that prefer it running in the background.  Having said that, I only have three automotive devices and perhaps a need exists for other products made by Garmin.  

They released 7.17.2.0 today. No change. It still starts up with Windows.

Same here. Unticking "Alwas keep Garmin Express running in the background" has no impact to the Windows (11 in my case) startup process. I've had to go into task manager startup and disable Garmin Express.

But it sounds like Garmin is actively troubleshooting this issue.

EXPRESSCUSTOMERCARE said:

We are looking into this, thank you for reporting.

The problem is that after the latest GE update, even when you have "Always keep Garmin Express running in the background" unchecked in the GE settings, Garmin in their fascist manner have added GE startup in the registry so that it will still run when you login. To get rid of this, run Regedit, go to registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, and delete the entry for GarminExpress.

Depending on the user's level of computer skills, messing with the registry can create issues.  Although I find the Garmin entry mentioned in my registry, I have it disabled in the Task Manager Startup group, and no where do I find evidence it is running.  I'm running Windows 10 22H2 build 19045.2965.

I wonder whether unticking the option to keep it running in the background is supposed to remove that registry entry.

I also wonder whether that registry entry gets modified with each version.

Garmin software is really bad about cleaning up after itself so if/when they fix this I won't be surprised if they don't remove that registry entry.

I run with the GE background option disabled.  I've also disabled Garmin Express in the Task Manager startup tab.  Having said that my registry entry reads "C:\Program Files (x86)\Garmin\Express\express.exe" /minimized so at least on my machine, I don't see where that registry entry has much to do with enabling or disabling the background option.  And no where do I find evidence it is running minimized as the registry entry might indicate.

Of course it won't be running if it's disabled in the Task Manager startup.  My point is that we know whether the current registry entry is there by mistake, and if it is, whether Garmin developers will be attentive enough to remove it if they fix the problem.

Adding, I reenabled GE in Task Manager Startup and opened GE and enabled background running there as well.  After rebooting the laptop, the registry entry remains unchanged.