To get Pidgin to start on startup on Windows, go to Tools -> Plugins (yeah, that's right, it's a plugin). Find Windows Pidgin Options in the list, check it off, and click the Configure Plugin button. Now you should see the Start Pidgin on Windows Startup option.
Start Pidgin on Windows Startup
This took me forever to figure out how to do, even when I'd figured it out some time before, so I thought I'd better document it here.
Mercedes
said 6 months ago
I knew there had to be a way to do it natively in Pidgin, without just adding its shortcut to the start-up menu...
Joe Blow
said 5 months ago
Thanks!
jason
said 4 months ago
Thank you! I was trying to figure this out and landed on this from a Google search.