Processes

I've never really checked until my son told me but in my Process Manager I've found a heap of programs running in the background even though I thought I was really running very little. I don't know much about the programs that are running and I was wondering if everyone here knows which programs I could close down to help my notebook run faster?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Don't have a lot of time at the moment, but here's a couple tips.

Quick way to start is to remove everything from your startup menu.
Do you really need everything to be running when you turn the PC on? If you need to use a program, run it. then close it when you're done.

Also, punch each of those file names into Google and it should tell you what they are and what program they're associated with. If it's a program you don't want or never use, then go into the control panel and uninstall it.

If you're not sure, post what you find and we'll give you more advice.

 

You can download Windows Defender and it shows you what they are being used for. There are numerous other programs that show you. Also, you can google the process like just searching explorer.exe and such.

If find things you want to disable go to Start>Run>Type msconfig, then enter. Then the startup tab. You can kind of tell by making the Command column larger.

 

Windows key + r

msconfig

Un-check anything you don't need at startup.

For reference, i have 16 processes on startup for my Windows XP Pro...

 

this is an advanced process explorer utility from MS, however as suggested, msconfig, a search for what that process does, should be sufficient.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

 

Just be very careful about what you disable. If you make a mistake, the results could range from disabling your power management to preventing yourself from logging into Windows.

A quick heads up: It's normal to have several SVCHOST.EXE processes running. Do not stop or disable any of those.

 

You can disable Windows XP services that you do not need.

http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnecessary_services_on_windows_xp. This can reduce the number of unnecessary threads and processes.

Another alternative of disabling automatic startup program apart from MSConfig is to use Startup Inspector for Windows. It's a pretty safe and handy utility.

 

get on the net, type in the "exe" file that r being listed on ur task manager processes, this would give you at least a sense of what/why they are there for and decide for urself if they r needed or not

i use cCleaner and remove whatever startup processes that i deem not necessarily for my day.to.day work

asus has a bunch of processes that r so intertwined with windows that would kill ur sys if u remove any of them, so if u have enough ram and disk space, leave it be

ati processes however can be safely removed, from startup process and service

cheers ...

 

You could also try disabling services by going to Start -> run -> services.msc. However, be careful about which ones you disable and always Google first.