How many icons next to the clock?
You should have one for the sound, the network connection and your antivirus. All others are optionnals and can be disabled if you want.
Any that you don't realy know what they are doing there? Right-click them and disable the "Start with windows" option. You may want to uninstall the application for some.
You may need to open the properties of some to change the startup options.
Take a look at what processes are running. Exit those that are not needed. Any process that windows don't let you terminate are essential.
The various svchost.exe are essentials.
Other CORE PROCESSES that you must NOT touch: csrss.exe, lsass.exe, idle process, services.exe, smss.exe, system, winlogon.exe and obviously your antivirus. (those are for windows xp, the exact names and number of processes can change if you have vista or 7)
taskmgr.exe is the task manager itself.
Check your antivirus settings. They are often to agressive, lower the sensitivity of any "real time" protection, or turn it off.
Make sure that non-infectable files are not scanned.
Run the windows disk cleanup utility to free some disk space.
Uninstall some application that you no longer use.
Defragment your drive(s).
If you have more than one hard drive, relocate the page file to the second drive. If you have several hard drives, distribute it across the various drives except the one that conttains Windows.
Some maintenance tips:
Get the programm Defraggler. It's a defragmenter that is MUCH more effecient than the one included with Windows. Set it to periodicaly defragment your drive(s). About once a week is a good start. If you have several drives, set them to be defragmented on various days and hours.
Available free for personnal, domestic use.
Get it here: http://www.piriform.com/defraggler
Get CCleaner and run it about once a month. More efficient and thourough than the windows disk cleanup utility.
Available free for personnal use.
Get it here: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Electro, May 2011
