[AniDanny]

I'm not sure exactly what the problem is, but I know there's a ton of programs running in the background. Is there anything out there that will tell me what I need and what I don't? I'm thinking something along the lines of a program that will scan them and say "this is needed for your computer to function, that is not" or else a list of all the essential programs and I'll pick amongst all the others to figure out what to get rid of.

Also, if there's anything besides the programs running in the background that might be the problem, give me suggestions and I'll see if it's something else. My computer's getting to the point it takes about five minutes to shut down and ten to fifteen minutes to start back up and be fully operational.

If it helps any: I'm running Windows XP Pro on an IBM ThinkPad T60 (laptop).

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some can be disabled at start up some can be safely removed.
others are important to the system .

in your add n remove programs is were you find what you want to remove
did you consider posting a hijack log in the malware forum to rule out that possibilty
before you attempt to remove crucial programs

[AniDanny]

I'll try a HJT log, but when my computer starts up there's usually about 65 processes running, and I'm not sure whether HJT would catch them all or not. I guess it's more an issue of telling some of them to stop starting up when the computer starts up (is there a list of that stored somewhere on my computer?) than actually getting rid of the programs altogether.

[AniDanny]

I got rid of a few things in the msconfig startup menu, but nothing in the services.msc because I wasn't sure what was safe to get rid of and what wasn't. I did ctrl + alt + del and I'm now down to only 58 processes.

I couldn't tell if you were telling me to stop everything in the services.msc list, or just certain things, so I thought it best to not touch anything.

[negative_silent]

At startup, you do not need any programs/application to run in order for Windows to fully load. Remove any program under the startup tab that you are not sure of, it is even safe to remove every single one of them, but if you like your Anti-Virus or IM Messenger to load at startup then you can keep those.

58 running processes is a ridiculously high number, normally, you only need between 27-38 at the very most.

You may also want to download the free version of Registry Mechanic to fix your registry and Diskeeper to defragment your files for a faster computer.

Edited by negative_silent, 22 August 2006 - 06:59 PM.

[AniDanny]

I'm using Registry Mechanic now, I'll go take off all the startup apps save for those that I want (which will probably just be AVG, I'll start up AIM on my own). What does Diskeeper do? Is it the same as the windows Defragmenter? Or is there something that makes it better? If I get rid of a bunch of background apps and I'm still not happy with the speed of my computer, I'll try the DLL thing, but my computer hasn't complained to me about low resources, so I should be fine as far as that goes.

[AniDanny]

Ok, I removed four or five things from msconfig and 20 or so from services.msc. My computer still starts up with 58, and after having started up AIM and firefox and getting into the full swing of things, I'm now up to 57. I don't get how that works, but whatever... As before, I look at the list of processes and see things I know I need, and things I'm not sure of, nothing I know I can get rid of... Only four things take up over 10K of memory though: AIM, Explorer, Firefox (all of which I want to keep) and svchost, but I have no idea what that is or whether it's safe to close it... =\

[negative_silent]

they maybe not related to malware but you may not need them in general

That is what I am thinking.



Have you posted a log of HJT in the other board yet? The experts can help you see which is needed and what is trash.