Need to get rid of background programs

[RalliArt882]

Hi, I'm sure alot of you have had this problem. Pretty soon I'm going to start messing with 3dmark06 and other benchmarking software, but first I want to figure out a way to get rid of background programs that are completely useless.

The problem is, I don't know how to permatly prevent them from launching at startup. I can get to taskmanager and find stupid things like "mssnger.exe" or "ituneservice.exe" that I know are just junk, and end those. But that's because the names of those are obvious cognates of what they really do.

I'd do a clean boot, but wouldn't that knock out some things that I need, like my G5 and G15 utilities and the Creative sound console? And, would a clean boot stop unecessary things from launching from then on? Please, help me reduce my commit charge ect. Thanks.

 

[Osiris]

disable everything except your antivirus and firewall if you have one

 

[forrestcupp]

disable everything except your antivirus and firewall if you have one

This is the reason you are a ~post whore~. You just told the OP to do what he already said he wants to do, but you didn't say how to do it.

Now, here's how you do it:

Click Start -> Run. In the "open" box, type msconfig

in the msconfig window click the Startup tab. Go through and uncheck everything you don't want loaded at startup. When you restart your computer a warning window will come up saying something like that you're doing an abnormal startup and there will be a box you can uncheck if you don't want this warning to come up every time.

 

[Lorithad]

Since you're new to msconfig, It might be an idea to refer to this site if you're unsure of what some of the startup items are.
Sysinfo.org

Some of the entries are required for your computer to do certain things, such as have your mouse buttons working as you want, or your anti virus to preform normally.

 

[superdave1984]

I also suggest downloading process explorer. It will tell you what all of those pesky processes actually are and let you determine if you want to kill them or not. Very handy and can be set to replace task manager too.
Process Explorer for Windows v10.21

 

[RalliArt882]

Alright thanks a ton guys. I'll look into it after I eat dinner, but so far it seems my question hase been completely answered. +1 for your tech-forum karma