... Task Menu and StartUp Folder... Your may have never heard of your "Task Menu" … however at some point and time it will be a necessity for you to use it.
The Task Menu is a list of all programs that are currently "running" when your computer is turned on. Many of the Programs that are running are not necessary to be in operation for normal computer usage, however, many of these programs are installed into your StartUp and Task Menu when you first installed a program, and the program was directed to also be installed to your Startup Menu.
Let's consider each of the above, one at a time:
TASK MENU
On your Keyboard, hit the CTRL - ALT - DEL keys, ONE time closely in a row (do it once only as twice closely in a row will restart your computer). You now see your Task Menu. Everything listed are programs that are running. When you start up a Program, it is then placed in the Task Menu to display that it is running.
There are basically only two files that are needed when you first turn on your computer, Explorer & Systray. The other listed programs are stuff you either have turned on or programs that were installed into the Task Menu when you first installed the program.
The reason to get familiar with the Task Menu is that at some point and time you will have a program conflict, where one program conflicts with another causing computer errors and problems. If you ever experience ANY type computer problem, the Task Menu is a good place to start to find what program is causing the problem or conflict.
Say you do experience a computer problem and you don't know which program is causing the problem, go to the Task Menu, close down or End Task on ALL programs except: Explorer & Systray.
Exit the Task menu and see if you still experience the same problem. If you cured the problem, now you have to see what Program was causing the conflict. Restart your computer, that will load all the programs back into the Task Menu. Now you can close or End Task on one program at a time till you find which program is the problem child.
Most new users have many more programs than needed listed in the Task Menu, eating up system resources, and causing unnecessary freezes. To show how few items you might really need there, I list below the programs that I have in my Task Menu (what you have listed, of course, will depend upon what programs you have installed and hopefully should be what is absolutely need):
Only by making a careful evaluation of what you have and what you need will you ever trim your system down to something that doesn't chew up resources even right after booting up. I know someone whose resources showed only 13% free right after bootup. She made some deletions and immediately it went up to 67%. Now I know with a little more trimming of Task Menu and disabling a few Startup items (see below), it should get to at least 80%. One way to check your resources is to right-click My Computer, Properties, Performance ... and voilà, there it is.
TO REMOVE A PROGRAM FROM THE STARTUP OR START MENU
First, why are they there in the StartUp folder ?
StartUp programs are programs that are loaded automatically upon starting your computer. The way they get into the StartUp is whenever you install a new program, many programs automatically install and set a default to be in your StartUp folder. Ninety-nine percent of these programs are not necessary to be in the StartUp, and many times having these programs in your there can cause software conflicts and end up causing problems and errors. Another thing to consider is these programs are also running in the "background" and do take up some unnecessary memory or system resources.
There's no reason to go crazy and remove all these programs, but you should consider removing the ones that you absolutely know you only use on seldom occasions. The Real Player or MSWord Find Fast are good examples of what to remove. Find Fast is more trouble than it's worth.
Removing or deleting the program from the StartUp or Start menu does not delete the program from the computer. It only removes it from those menus. There are two places to check to remove a program from these places.
One way is to go to Start, Programs, StartUp, and delete or remove the program you don't want by right-clicking on the program and clicking Delete (as an aside, you can also "sort by name" items in your Start menu this way).
To remove shortcuts in general from the Start menu, go to Start, Settings, "Taskbar & Start Menu" … click on Start Menu Programs, then clicking the respective buttons, you can Add or Remove the program you choose.
Another way (you'll learn that in computering there are many train routes to Chicago) is to right-click the Start button, click Explore or Open (I prefer the Explore window without question), and move to whatever part of the Start menu you want (StartUp is in the Programs window). Now you can move, copy, or delete any shortcuts you want. Again, removing a shortcut has no effect on the program itself; it just won't start running as soon as you bootup the computer (using up all your valuable system resources); instead it will wait for YOU to open it at YOUR will.
DISABLING A STARTUP ITEM
The System Configuration Utility allows you to turn off any auto-start program with the click of a check box. Select Start, Run, type "msconfig" (sans quotes, and it could be in caps MSCONFIG; not case sensitive), and click OK. In the resulting dialog box, click the Startup tab to display a list of all programs that start whenever Windows starts. Deselect the one that's been bugging you (making certain you know which one it is), then click OK. The next time you start Windows, that program is nowhere to be found.
To show how few items you really need there (remember that each system has individual needs), I have checked ONLY the following:
The point is to keep the checked list down to what is really needed to conserve system resources. A lot of this will be trial and error work on your part, but once you know what you need you can configure this window accordingly.
STOPPING STARTUP PROGRAMS
Everything that loads during the Windows bootup is loaded from either the StartUp folder, the System files, or the Registry. You can prevent a program from running as your system starts by following the procedures outlined here.
We covered the StartUp folder above. If the program wasn't in the StartUp folder, you'll want to check your System files. Before making any changes to System files, it's always a good idea to make backup copies of any files you decide to edit. On the chance that something is changed accidentally, the original files can always be copied back to their locations.
To edit your System files, click your Start button, then select the Run option. In the Open: box type SYSEDIT and click the OK button. This will display your System files. Look first in the WIN.INI file. Type REM at the beginning of any line that refers to the application in question.
Check both the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Type REM at the beginning of any line that refers to the application in question. When you close the file, click Yes to save your changes. System file changes require a system restart for the changes to take effect.
The last place to look would be the Windows Registry. Registry editing is touchy and unforgiving, best handled by experienced users.
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