Just so you know, I did originally put this up in the GEEK! Guides section on GEEK!, but I decided since I’m discontinuing that section I’ve decided I’d better republish the guides. For this guide, I’ve updated it a little and republished it here.

It happens to all of us – you’ve had your computer quite a while now and all that software you installed is beginning to take its toll. Slow start-ups, tonnes of programs nagging you on the taskbar – it happens to all of us eventually. It’s quite simple to fix, and it doesn’t always mean that you have to remove programs. Basically, you just need to use System Configuration to disable some of the programs you don’t need from running at start-up. It reduces the load on your RAM and processor meaning that startups are quicker and you aren’t bombarded with programs on the start bar.

Start off by going to Start, and then run “msconfig” (without quoutes). Once it’s loaded, you need to click the ‘Startup’ tab. The long list of tick boxes you see in front of you are all of the programs that are set to run when you boot up your computer. Most of the programs are probably gobbledegook to you, and most people. What you need to do is have your Internet browser open, and search the processes you don’t know in a Google search or similar. See the example below.

For example, I don’t know what IMJPMIG is. So, I fire up a search and see what I find.

You should find that there will be plenty of websites that will tell you what it is. From the internet, I can find out that IMJPMIG is the Microsoft Input Method Editor.

In this case, we can consider it [vaguely] useful and ought to keep it running. You should do this for all of the processes in the list if you have time. You should recognise many of the processes in the list. I would recommend not deactivating the following programs as it may stop Windows running properly:

• RUNDLL32
• Cftmon
• REGSHAVE
• Taskswitch
• Svchost
• explorer

Obviously, try to be careful not to deactivate important programs like antivirus, firewall or any other important programs you use regularly. Even if you just get 3 or 4 programs deactivated, it will definitely improve the speed of your computer.