there are a few programs out to manage this type of thing, one of which is WinTasks. i was curious as to whether anyone knows if this sort of software is actually useful/helpful in increasing performance of a system.
my computer is a few years old, and it's had its share of problems, but overall i have few complaints; however, performance has decreased, and although i clean it regularly, defrag it frequently, and run anti-virus software every few days, it doesn't seem to help bring it back up to speed.