Programs runing in the background

Posted by scamp on 2009-12-26 00:11:47, Saturday

Is it possible to turn off some programs that I think could be running in the background?

There are some icons in my toolbar that I don't use, and have no idea what they do or how they got there, and I was wondering if they are running some programs in the background, and if so is there a way for me to turn them off.

It seems that my computer is taking unusually long to boot up now, and I am looking at ways to get it back up to its earlier times when it didn't take so long to boot up.

Am I grasping at straws thinking I can speed up the performance by turning off programs that could be running in the background?

I'm not computer literate, so I would need step-by-step instructions that I can print out to fix this machine, if it is possible to fix it.

I am using Windows XP.

Follow ups:

Two more suggestions - Joe Power 2009-12-26 20:34:46, Saturday (1)
- Thanks, I think this is what I'm looking for - fidia 2010-01-16 02:35:10, Saturday (0)
Defrag - shellban 2009-12-26 14:35:52, Saturday (1)
- Thanks - scamp 2010-01-16 02:25:06, Saturday (0)
MSConfig - BenB 2009-12-26 03:06:30, Saturday (3)
- Fixed, thanks to everyone - scamp 2010-01-16 04:42:18, Saturday (0)
- Re: MSConfig - scamp 2010-01-16 02:45:17, Saturday (0)
- Thanks............ - scamp 2010-01-16 02:15:21, Saturday (0)
Spybot - Webmaster 2009-12-26 01:14:01, Saturday (1)
- Thanks (nt) - scamp 2009-12-26 02:53:09, Saturday (0)

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