Re: How do I minimise the number of processes that load at startup

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Thanks Ken

I seem to have opened a can of worms here. The reason I posed the question
is that each of the 39 processes seems to open up slowly, one after the
other, when I start my PC. I therefore sit there waiting sometimes 4 or 5
minutes before I can do anything else.
I suppose mt real question is, 'will cancelling any of these proceeses being
loaded on startup make any difference to the speed of startup?'
What's your advice?
"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

Andytheref wrote:

Windows Task Manager shows that I have 39 processes running, that
load up whenever I start up my PC. How do I stop them loading up
automatically, and how do I determine which ones are needed and which
ones are not?


First of all, 39 is not an unusual number, nor is it a particularly high
one. Many people have 60 or more running without a problem.

Second, wanting to minimize their number is a counterproductive desire. If a
particular process isn't doing something necessary or desirable, *and* it
impacts performance (not all do), then you might want to consider stopping
it. It should be *which*, not how many.

There are probably few if any you have running that you should stop, and
fooling around with processes can easily get you into trouble.

Here's my standard advice on autostarting programs (not processes in
particular):

On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its Options to
see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you actually choose the
option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon" option). Many can easily
and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the
Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't
want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running
the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you
should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but
*which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no
effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is
determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost
in performance is of its running all the time. You can get more information
about these at http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it
there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup



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