need a program to shutdown background processes

My still new & powerful computer is getting seriously bogged down with programs that insist they need to continually run in the background. Itunes, Roxio, Lightscribe and many other programs think that they need to constantly monitor all of the media on my computer. And I am editing photos and videos all of the time so these background processes are eating up a lot of my system resources.

Can anyone recommend a program to shutdown some of these annoying programs? Also, does someone have a list of programs it is ok to disable?

Hey, check out Security Task Manager. http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/

I used their trial version when I was having a spy bot problem on one of my computers and it helped me figure out what program was in memory doing the evil. The program tells you what program each in memory belongs to.

Jimmy

Thanks Jimmy. That is helpful. But I'd still be afraid to shutdown a lot of the processes that it doesn't like. For example, it suggests that my Creative (sound card), Nvidia (graphics card) and Promise (HD RAID controller) have running processes that may be harmful. And I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable shutting any of them down.

http://www.what-process.com/index.aspx

Has a good list that might help you :morning:

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Originally Posted by gaystoryman

http://www.what-process.com/index.aspx

Has a good list that might help you :morning:

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I installed but the site keeps timing out when I seach for processes. :(

I don't think the site is updating anymore.

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php?filter=&letter=H try this one..

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Originally Posted by gaystoryman

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php?filter=&letter=H try this one..

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That works a lot better. Thanks!

I still need a program that let's me select programs not to load on startup. :D

just use msconfig from the 'run' menu to turn of whatever processes you wish

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Originally Posted by gaystoryman

just use msconfig from the 'run' menu to turn of whatever processes you wish

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Sounds scary! What if I fuck something up?!

I just found Control Panel>Administator Tool>Services. Does that do the same thing as MSconfig?

I just spent the last hour restoring my computer and reinstalling Outlook (for some strange reason it disappeared). :(


Do NOT attempt to change your Startup program list via msconfig unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing.

I guess I'll just have to live with 40 extra fucking programs running in the background all of the time. This is such bullshit!

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

I installed but the site keeps timing out when I seach for processes. :(

I don't think the site is updating anymore.

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Now that you have a clean system *grin* you might want to run this: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys.../Autoruns.mspx

M$ bought Sysinternals a few months ago and made all tools available. Autoruns should do the job you need

DEVELISH

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Originally Posted by DEVELISH

Now that you have a clean system *grin* you might want to run this: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys.../Autoruns.mspx

M$ bought Sysinternals a few months ago and made all tools available. Autoruns should do the job you need

DEVELISH

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That's great Develish. But I have no idea what to do with the program. I just see a lot of stuff I'm better off not messing with. I think I've learned my lesson. I'll just stop now before I turn my computer into an expensive paper-weight.

I usually check three places:
1) your "start up" folder
2) in the registry, under HKEYLocalMachine/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run (and runonce)
3) in the registry, under HKEYCurrentUser/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run (and runonce)

to launch the registry editor, click start -> run and type in:
regedit
and click OK.

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! that being said, its bloody easy to see the stuff you don't want like itunes, apple update service, icq tray boot, etc...
And honestly, this is IMHO the easiest and most effective way to get rid of those autostart programs.

cheers,
Luke