Hey team:
There are some rather annoying issues that my compuetr has and I hear you guys are rather clued up about this sorta thing so:
My computer is quite aicient and has picked up a rather copious amount of crap during it's service. perhaps unrelated is the problem of there being around 60 processes running right of the bat without me opening anything. I thought i could correct these by using MSCONFIG and stopping them at startup but the fiends outsmarted me and still show up on my task manager. I need a way of getting rid these bastards once and for all.
 
Cheers

 
Its annoying, but the only sure way is to format the drive and reinstall the operating system. I tend to do my systems at least once every two years. Installing and uninstalling leaves so much rubbish in your system. Reinstalling the operating system makes a big difference.
 
Plan ahead though, make sure you back up what you need (email, my documents etc).

Its annoying, but the only sure way is to format the drive and reinstall the operating system. I tend to do my systems at least once every two years. Installing and uninstalling leaves so much rubbish in your system. Reinstalling the operating system makes a big difference.
 
Plan ahead though, make sure you back up what you need (email, my documents etc).

 
WOAH... uh, there is a lot more that could be done besides frying the HDD. Use that as a last course of action. The first thing you should do is look through your programs and remove unneeded and unwanted applications by the traditional means. After that, you can use MSCONFIG under the startup tab to limit even more (e.g., Adobe SL [speed launcher] is completely unneccessary unless you are constantly opening PDFs). Further, you can go to the services tab in MSCONFIG and disable the startup of services that you don't need. You can even go into the services MSC and figure out what you do and do not need running (e.g., I always disable the print spooler, as I don't even own a printer; I also disable Fax, because I also don't own one). If you are diligent about making sure your programs (like Java and Flash) are up-to-date, then you can disable their update scheduling services that always seem to run in the background.
 
DO NOT TOUCH THE OTHER TABS IN MSCONFIG UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! You can royally screw the system up by toying with the unknown.
 
Another thing most people do (and I don't know why) is have 3 or 4 browsers installed on the system, and then have another 3 or 4 tool bars with even more add-ins installed. All those things pile up like a snowball effect and can really bog a system down. You should try to get your services down to around 45; the less the better, but don't go shutting things off just for the sake of doing so.