advice for msconfig boot and partition choice

[-RockMan-]

My first question, I am using windows xp msconfig boot option to start up to load very few programs that may run in the background when I am burning a DVD or playing a computer game. when I need to have all programs that run in the background to be turned off is there some option that will remember my customized booting configuration when booting up xp ? its a real pain to have to tell xp everytime to shut off all running programs in the background when I need this option intact for a special reason. is there a program that can help me manage msconfig boot options ?

I have taken my 40gig hard drive and gave it 2 partitions C:14 gigs M:24gigs the reason why I did this because I am trying to reduce the stress on my hard drive and to keep the blasted thing quite..... do you think this was a good choice or do you have a better solution ?

 

[MrCoffee]

I dont have an XP machine infront of me so i'll have to be a bit vague.

There are several ways programs can get themselves to load on startup including the registry, win.ini ??, and the startup folder.

Using msinfo32 you can view most startup programs in software/startup programs.
I'm using NT4 here so I cant take a look at Msconfig for you but there are dozens on applications that allow you to control startup programs e.g. regcleaner, hijackthis, spybot etc... (at least from memory anyway). Or you could just edit the relevant files yourself.

I wouldn't recomend messing around too much, if you dont recognise a startup item you probably do need it.

 

[-RockMan-]

Actually what I am trying to get windows xp to remember is 2 things, (normal start up) and (customized start up) if there was some program that could manage just those 2 options I would be very greatfull for that. also I know my way around msconfig long enough to know which programs need to run and others that don't need to run.

 

[EricB]

leave the programs uncheck all of the time except for you A/V and firewall