Axioms for Windows XP users. Technical help installment 2
Clean up those tasks! I wanna meet that dad!
Quite possibly the biggest disservice you could do to your computer is having it work when it doesn’t need to. Most of the today’s programs like to be a nuisance and take refuge in your startup and carelessly run in the background using memory for no good reason.
If you haven’t done so already you should familiarize yourself with the System Configuration Utility. It can be accessed by the following
start > Run > type msconfig > press enter
For now, we’re only going to concern ourselves with the Startup tab. This is a list of all of the processes Windows will load automatically every time you start up the computer.
If you’re not using a laptop it’s usually safe to go ahead and hit disable all and apply; however this means nothing will start up, including any anti-virus/firewall software you have. If you’d like to have these programs start up leave them checked, their paths are listed under Command. Go ahead and slide the command bar over so you can see the full path. This is especially useful if the name listed under Startup Item ambiguous.
Some notebook/laptop manufacturers leave certain keyboard/touchpad functionalities listed under startup. If you use these features (such as the fn key/volume slider/mute etc.) then you should pay attention to startup items listed with such names as “hotkey” or “touchpad”.
As a general rule it’s always safer to leave something checked, but it’s not the end of the world if something goes wrong. You can always come back and change the startup items later.
Quite possibly the biggest disservice you could do to your computer is having it work when it doesn’t need to. Most of the today’s programs like to be a nuisance and take refuge in your startup and carelessly run in the background using memory for no good reason.
If you haven’t done so already you should familiarize yourself with the System Configuration Utility. It can be accessed by the following
start > Run > type msconfig > press enter
For now, we’re only going to concern ourselves with the Startup tab. This is a list of all of the processes Windows will load automatically every time you start up the computer.
If you’re not using a laptop it’s usually safe to go ahead and hit disable all and apply; however this means nothing will start up, including any anti-virus/firewall software you have. If you’d like to have these programs start up leave them checked, their paths are listed under Command. Go ahead and slide the command bar over so you can see the full path. This is especially useful if the name listed under Startup Item ambiguous.
Some notebook/laptop manufacturers leave certain keyboard/touchpad functionalities listed under startup. If you use these features (such as the fn key/volume slider/mute etc.) then you should pay attention to startup items listed with such names as “hotkey” or “touchpad”.
As a general rule it’s always safer to leave something checked, but it’s not the end of the world if something goes wrong. You can always come back and change the startup items later.