Too much background stuff running. How do I turn it off?

[mayhemandchaos8]

I have and old a1224n that I'm trying to hang onto until I can afford a new computer.  I'm trying everything I can to keep it running fast, plus it has XP, which I love!  So here's my latest issue.  I have gone into msconfig and turned off all but about four of the startup programs (in the startup tab) to minimize apps running in the background, but as soon as it boots up, when I open Task Manager it shows like 20 programs running.  Most of them I don't understand, so I'm assuming they're required apps to run XP, but there are others that I do recognize, programs that I loaded onto the machine but don't seem to be anywhere in the boot log (at least, not that I can see).  Programs like Canon Picture apps, Zune, Apple software support, etc.  I want the programs on there, but there's got to be a way to keep them dormant until I want to open them and not have them running in the background.  Any suggestions or help?  O/S is XP SP3, Norton Antivirus.  Thanks, jeff

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Jeff:

See if any of those items are in the Administrative Tools > services program. If so, stop them from running and change the startup from automatic to manual.

Your Norton A/V uses a lot of resources.

I prefer to use MS Security Essentials A/V which is free and uses very few resources.

That is up to you. Should you decide to uninstall Norton, then you need to go to the Norton website and use their uninstall tool.

Paul

[mayhemandchaos8]

Is MS Security Essentials a good protection program?  I feel safe with norton, but that doesn't mean I can't be convinced otherwise.

Also, not to be a complete noob, but where do I find the Admin Tools > services program?

j

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I and many others, think it is. But I recommend you do a search on "Microsoft Security Essentials reviews," and form your own opinon.  For must of us home users, it works just fine. Has antispyware too.  Here's a few to get you started...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376220,00.asp

http://www.cnet.com.au/microsoft-security-essentials-339298827.htm

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200926/3926/Review-Microsoft-Security-Essentials

Now, to see what things run in Windows, you can see this by:

Click on Start>Settings>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Services.

The Services window will open and you will see almost every process that Windows has and whether it starts automatically, manually, or is disabled.  You can click on each individual service and configure it to run automatically, manually or disable it.

Paul

[mayhemandchaos8]

Sweet.  Found it.  This will help tons.  Thanks again man.  I'm just going to send you my machine and let you fix it all, since you've been doing all my fixing for me anyway.

I appreciate all the help.

jeff

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're welcome, Jeff.