Programs running on my computer

[purstrength]

On my old computer whenever I turned it on, I'd press control alt delete to pull up the programs that were running on my computer. At some point someone had told me which programs to close to help my computer run faster.

I now have a new computer and it is running 51 programs. I don't know what most of them are as they say things like smss.exe. I'd like to be able to close some of them, but I would also like to stop some of them from even starting. Several times over the past few weeks, my computer has been running VERY loudly. I just noticed one of the programs is iPodService.exe. I don't have an iPod, nor do I have a mac. :shrug

Can anyone help me with this?

[purstrength]

Maybe no one has any idea what I'm talking about, or have no idea how to help me, but I thought I'd bump this up to be sure. :shifty :grin

[DeenyB]

I know what your talking about, however I dont know whch ones are safe/not safe.
I am :popcorn right along with you :)

[purstrength]

Glad to know I'm not the only one! :grin

Hopefully someone will come along that can help us out! :tu

[SouthPaw]

i know what you mean. how much stuff do you have running in your system tray? if you have messenger programs, weatherbug, stuff like that running they are easy to get rid of. just change the settings in the program to where they do not start automatically.

as for the other stuff, i dunno. i know what you're talking about, but not which ones are necessary.

[purstrength]

I've taken care of all of those things. Some of them, I haven't found the option to change them so they don't start automatically, but I just close them after I've turned my computer on. Its just all the other ones that I don't know what they are.

[Drew]

You're referring to the programs listed on the processes tab, correct? If you want to PM me a full list I can tell you what to get rid of.

Also, do you (or have you ever) have iTunes installed? That's where the iPodService usually comes from.

[Leslie]

I've taken care of all of those things. Some of them, I haven't found the option to change them so they don't start automatically


On my computer, I click the Start button, then I click "Run." I type in msconfig and the OK button. From the box that comes up, I check the Startup tab. That brings up a list of all the programs that are programmed to start automatically every time my computer boots up. I can uncheck the box for the ones I don't want to start automatically.

There are a few programs that are necessary to Windows but aren't anything you'd recognize from the name, so you don't want to uncheck anything you aren't sure about. I think you can do a search online to find out which programs are necessary for Windows to have in your Startup menu.

If you have a lot of programs automatically starting and slowing down your computer, you might have unauthorized spyware or something. You can download a free program called Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.com that will search your hard drive for spyware and bugs and remove them.

[purstrength]

Thank you, Leslie! I already have Ad-Aware, but I was able to disable a couple of things from the startup menu, using run the way you mentioned. :tu

Thank you!

[Hermana Linda]

Another good program to rid your computer of spyware is Spybot Search and Destroy. It is free and it has a start up thing to tell you which things it recommends you try removing from the start up. Of course, you uncheck the box and can always check it if there are problems. I like that program better than Ad Aware. :)

[purstrength]

I have Spybot S&D, too! :tu And then I also have AVG antivirus.

Thank you for the suggestion! :hug

[Drew]

You're running SpyBot and AdWare at the same time. That may be part of your problem right there. I've never seen multiple anti-adware/spyware programs work well together.

[purstrength]

I don't keep them running all the time. I run them approximately once a week at separate times.