Running slow

[secsee1]

First of all let me explain I am not a computer wizard, I know only the bare basics so please no highly
technical answers please.
My laptop is a Packard Bell running win.XP and up until now has been fine, but now I am finding that it seems to be running ever so slow, I do regular (weekly) defrags on it and also scan for viruses &
infections, the problem seems to be that it takes for ever to start up, somebody told me that some programs automatically open on start up and run in the background and that too many of these running
at the same time will drastically slow down your computer, so my question is how do I check which
programs open by themselves and how do I stop them from doing it.

[society]

Sounds like the evil New Year monster has invaded your computer.

Happy New Year!

[hc4361]

Click Start, then Run. Type
msconfig
in the box.

Click the start up tab and google for anything you don't recognise. Untick the boxes when you are sure you don't the program automatically loading. If you're not sure, leave well alone.

[ChuckFickens]

Clcik start > run

type "msconfig" into the run box and hit enter, click on the startup tab and it'll show you a list of everything loading at startup

Some things are obvious (like you don't need stuff like msn messenger loading) other things are not so obvious, if you type the name of the program loading into google and see what you get as replies about it you should be able to see if it's needed or not. if your not sure then post the name of the program here and somebody will tell you if it's needed or not.

[secsee1]

Thanks guy's, as ever you are most helpful, like chuck said the first thing to come up was msm messenger
with lots of other stuff that I am looking into right now, as you said chuck if I am not sure I will post it on here
for your help.. Thanks again and a happy 2010 to you all..

[ChuckFickens]

Well at least me and HC agreed :)

[TTG]

Look in task manager at the processes running when the computer has started up. Press and hold crtl alt delete at the same time to view task manager. Click on the processes tab. This will give you an idea of what is hogging the system. Sort it by Mem Usage. Search on google for advice on each process. Might take a while if you have a lot running!