Church staff I talk to often complain about the speed of their computer. In Tip #1 I showed you how easy it is to add more Ram. Adding Ram is the single best thing you can do to speed up your computer.
Tip #2 on this page is especially helpful if you have a lot of programs you’ve installed, and have an older computer, or one without a lot of ram…
Tip #2: Keep programs from starting up when you turn on your computer. They suck ram and processing time, even when you don’t see them on the screen.
Windows lets many applications install themselves at startup “in the background” sucking ram memory. They also eat processor time just sitting there at the ready.
Many of these programs signal their presence by placing an ICON in the “task tray” at the bottom right hand corner of your desktop. If you have an older and slower computer without much ram, you want to cut down these number of programs that run at startup.
SLOWLY roll over those icons and see what’s running. In most cases, you can RIGHT click any of those icons and turn them off, temporarily disable them, or open them and select a preference not to let them start up with Windows. You can start them up later when you need them.
Some of the worst offenders are programs like Adobe Photo Album, Quicktime and iTunes. They are nice programs, but you don’t need them to start themselves every time you start your computer. Adware and “Malware” programs also like to run at startup and be annoying. See my ‘advanced’ remarks at the end of this post for removing them.
The ONLY major program you really need to run at start up other than Windows is your antivirus. Everything else is sucking computer power from you, so you may want to disable them from automatically running at startup. To disable them, RIGHT click their icons in the Task Tray, and/or go into the programs and change their “preferences”. Most give you an option NOT to start them at Windows startup.
Your antivirus and/or spam program is the only major program you always want to run at startup. It will put an icon in your task tray (bottom right of your desktop) and might go by the name of Norton/Symantec, AVG, McAfee, TrendMicro, Panda, etc)
Some other icons you may find in your startup list or Task Tray are simply indicators of Windows processes that have options you can tweak. You don’t need to bother them. They include:
- your mouse
- your internet connection notice
- your sound icon
- your power options
If you run Google Desktop, you need to let it run at startup so that it can continue to catalog your harddrive for fast searches. But be aware that neat free programs like this suck ram. Yahoo and Google Toolbars installed in your web browser suck ram too and can slow down your browser’s response time. Point: be careful what you download “for free.”
Advanced Startup Management
Not all programs which insert themselves into your startup routine will put an icon in your Desktop Task tray. So you’ll need to follow this next step to find out if you have other Ram and Processor Sucking programs insidiously running at startup and shut them off. It involves downloading a free utlity that comes in VERY handy.
If you have Vista…it comes with an easy to use startup manager. Look in your control panel.
If you have XP or ME, you could download a free utility to help you. I currently recommend http://www.windowsstartup.com/startupinspector.php It’s free and has an up to date database of programs that insert themselves into Windows startup. If you’re reading this in 2009, Google “Windows Startup Manager” and look for a free utility that’s been updated recently.
In XP you can also click START, RUN, then type “msconfig” and press OK. Click the startup tab to see the programs that are running. You can easily UNCHECK a program from that screen, but only do so if you are familiar with what the programs are. One way to discover what the programs are, is to google them. Or go to http://answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm. The have a database that will tell you if the program you see in your startup list is essential or can be disabled from starting at startup.