Bill Ridgeway wrote:

>"blackhead" <larryharson@softhome.net> wrote in message
>news:a480b40b-e13a-47d4-8ad8-913fff0a75b2@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>>I have an old computer which is very suseptible to applications in the
>> background hogging up useage. So when using system monitor, I noticed
>> that the processor useage was 100% even though nothing was running in
>> the foreground. It turns out that when I run Yahoo Messenger, the
>> processor useage shoots up to 100% and when i close it, it's still
>> running at 100% useage.
>>
>> So what's going on?
>
>I think you're possibly tackling this problem from the wrong direction. Why
>not look at stopping applications running at start up?
>
>Click on <Start><Run>
>Type MSCONFIG and click on <OK>
>Click on <StartUp>
>This will give you a list of all the applications running at start up
>Untick all those that are 'Software', 'StartUp' or 'Common Startup' (but see
>exceptions below)
>Don't worry you are only stopping them from running not de-installing. Any
>of them can be ticked again but I work on the basis that I will start an
>application when I want it and not to have everything running (taking up
>valuable resource) just in case.
>
>You could also go into Windows Explorer Documents And Settings
>\X\StartMenu\Programs\StartUp and delete any shortcuts (again, to
>applications running at start up (but see exceptions below).
>
>Be careful though. Don't stop antispyware and antivirus from running at
>start up.
>
>Bill Ridgeway

Good point, but I'd recommend using AutoRuns instead of MSCONFIG
because of its vastly superior capability.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb963902.aspx