I do not (AFAIK) think I have any malware or other infection on my machine. I run AVG 8 and spybot with Teatimer. I do nightly scans. In the past few weeks AVG has found an infection or two and quickly dispensed with it. I have run clean since about 2 weeks ago.
My issue is that like most desktops, as time goes on, I have developed a very slow boot, and my machine appears to take longer to perform the same tasks that used to run reasonably fast. Nothing jumps out as being specifically slow or fast. And no one installation or update of any of my programs stands out as having been the culprit.
I have gone through add/remove programs and culled out what i *KNOW* I can safely remove, but it has had little effect on the machine. I have looked at task manager and CPU/MEM utilization, and nothing appears out of ordinary. I do find that I have a lot of processes running that appear to be OK, but there are just so many of them. some of them I recognize as related to applications, others I recognize as related to the OS. I would like to pare this down to what *I* need, and not what the *software application folks* want me to install. For example I have an app called "HP Customer participation ...." I researched it went to uninstall it, and it said if I want to use any of the following programs, I should not install it. Well, I DO want use some of those programs. Scanning, printing etc. I just don't want all the other junk that they make me install with it. This is just an example.
I will include a recent HiJackThis log. I also have the startup log if it would help. Per the FAQ I have not included it in this first post.
My ultimate goal is to get my laptop back to the speed it used to run at (make it faster) by deleting what I don't really need or use. Any help in identifying these unwanted/unneeded programs/processes would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
P....