msconfig.exe

[danger boy]

Ok.. sometimes i don't want programs on my computer to run in the background. i go into their settings or properties.. and try and disable them. but only to find out that when i go into start up program's listing using msconfig.exe i find they are still running in the back ground.

so needless to say. i have quite a few programs that I don't need or use taking up valuable resources on my old computer. any other way to disable it from running in the background on the task bar so it doesn't take up resources?

i don't want to uninstall the programs.. just have them not run in the background when i have no intention of using that program for weeks or months some times.

don't think this is anything useful but my computer is only running win XP on 512 megs ram. so any ram i can get back would be a good thing.

[BIZILL]

nevermind

[SKsolutions]

You can also manually disable services from running in Administrative Tools > Control Panel. Trial and error, but if something else is dependent upon it, and you use that, you'll have to go back and enable.
Try Process Explorer. Google. It's like task manager on steroids. You can see the thread, writes, location, whether it uses TCP/IP, and more useful stuff. It will also validate each process to make sure it's the real deal and not an exploit.

[BIZILL]

some programs 'auto-add' themselves to your msconfig startup screen whenever the program is accessed. is this your issue? it's a hard battle to win. good luck db.

[danger boy]

some programs 'auto-add' themselves to your msconfig startup screen whenever the program is accessed. is this your issue? it's a hard battle to win. good luck db.

Yeah, i think that is the problem. some programs yeah i do want to have running in the background... and I know XP has it's own that have to run in the background.

but when things like photo programs or AIM or any of those.. I don't think to me they should have to be running in the background if I don't intend to use them for days or weeks, etc.

Seems like when XP came out.. it installed programs to run in the background more so than any previous Window's ever did. I think it's called Quick Start or something like that. I want slow start with mine thanks. ha ha

[nms]

The other tab in msconfig you may want to explore is the "Services" tab. Check the "hide all MS services" and look for anything you don't want running.

I'm with you - every time I install some new software I check the msconfig app to see what it's put in my startup.