Is there a site or place I can get info that has some info of what each of
the startup items do under msconfig
*Any* program at all can be set to run automatically when you boot.
Since the number of possible programs is vast, no, there is no place
that comes close to listing them all.
or ways to determine what is needed to
run and startup and what is not necessary??
None of them is necessary. Windows doesn't need any of them; the only
question is what *you* need or want. Here's my standard post on this
subject:
On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its
Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you
actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon"
option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't
work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab,
uncheck the programs you don't want to start automatically.
However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of
running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell
you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs
you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but
others have no effect on performance.
Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do
is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what
the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can get
more information about these at
http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it there,
try google searches and ask about specifics here.
Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.
