Windows XP what tasks are nessesary?

[Alf]

What Background Tasks are really nessessary? which ones are the "vital" ones.

 

[Ian]

It depends on your system really, but explorer.exe is a must

There are often things like Real Player and other non-essential things loading up on startup, so those are fine to remove.

 

[muckshifter]

Let it alone ... you won't do much to improve your system

Anything under your name can be a non-essential 'task' ... everything Windows does is essenanlly needed.

As you can see by mine, there is a lot going on with Norton/Symantec ...

As a general rule, if you have 512mb ram, don't worry about it ... unless you suspect something.

 

[betty02]

hey i have alot more than your going and the must be slowing my pc down have nothing on my start up menu do you want a screenshot?

 

[muckshifter]

hey i have alot more than your going and the must be slowing my pc down have nothing on my start up menu do you want a screenshot?

Sure, why not.

 

[betty02]

as you can see the applications i have open whilst i was saving the screenshot it took me about 5-10 minutes as paint crases when i save something???

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/zippy&tez/TASKMANAGER.gif

 

[Ian]

as you can see the applications i have open whilst i was saving the screenshot it took me about 5-10 minutes as paint crases when i save something???

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/zippy&tez/TASKMANAGER.gif

Oh dear, it looks as if you have some Adware there. Follow Muck's guide here:

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/Windows/Protection_against_Adware_and_Spyware/

If you get rid of the Adware it should run quite a bit faster!

 

[betty02]

hmm sorry this is his girlfriend i dont have a clue about these sort of things?

 

[Ian]

hmm sorry this is his girlfriend i dont have a clue about these sort of things?

OK, basically you have to read that article, and it will explain what spyware and adware is, and how to remove it. There is a bit more information here too:

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/Internet/Spyware_and_Adware_Removal/

The main application you'll want to install is probably the MS AntiSpyware, its really easy to install and will clean your system up nicely.

 

[betty02]

i installed it but the CPU usage went down but the processes is still the same

 

[Alf]

does MS antispware thing get Adware too? I have the same problem with the family computer, there is a ridiculous amount of processes going on but Mcfee doesnt detect any spy or ad ware. ohh by the way there are 60+ process going on at any given time!!

 

[muckshifter]

Alf, 60 processes seems too many ...

I can highly recommend anybody who uses XP to download and run MS Anti-Spyware (don't forget they never wrote the program in the first place)... and using the default settings is also recommended.

MS A-S will not bother too much with benign cookies, so I recommend Spy Sweeper and/or Ad-Aware SE also, but disable Spy Sweeper's "start with Windows" and just run as needed.

You also NEED SpywareBlaster ... any PC not running SpywareBlaster is a fool.

Ian has a linkie in his post to my article, have a read, it's worth it.

 

[muckshifter]

Oh ... and I personally consider Mcfee to BE a virus in its own right.

 

[Ian]

I'll let you guys into a little secret - I'm working getting a mirror of a startup tasks list from the net. It basically explains what each task is so you know what to do about it. The anti-spyware applications are the primary defence, but this should give you an insight as to what is running.

The beta is running at : https://www.pcreview.co.uk/startup (It really is a beta, so don't expect it to work properly for a few days )

 

[floppybootstomp]

Just out of interest...

I hadn't run AdawareSE V1.05 for a few days, I updated it this morning, there was an update file available today.

I linked to Spy Sweeper (cost - £20.95 per year) and ran their online test. My risk, according to Spy Sweeper, was low. It found 28 adware cookies and nothing else.

I then ran AdAwareSE (cost - nowt) and it found 30 cookies, removed them, then I deleted the backup file. That's two more cookies found by AdAwareSE (free) than Spy Sweeper (costs money).

Similarly, AntiVir defeats viruses and Trojans just as effectively as Nortons. Antivir is free, Nortons cost around £40.00 for about 18 months worth of protection.

What I can't figure out is - why do people pay money for programs when free ones are available. Does shelling out hard earned cash make you think the product is better? Does paying for something offer more peace of mind and security?

Does a fancy GUI make you feel better?

I don't understand.

If there were no free programs available, I'd willingly pay for software to protect my system. But there are free ones available. And they work.

Man, I is confused for sure...

Also, I would agree with Mucks when he states McAffee isn't particularly too good.

And Ian, good idea, that could be very very useful indeed.

 

[Alf]

all my antivirus and anti spy/adware was all free from a few computing magazines.

 

[betty02]

i have downloaded the MS antispware and it does not take the process level down mine is now 57 and it sometimes goes upto 67 when im not running anything what so everi have Mcfee and also norton internet security none of them work although the MS antispware bought my CPU usage down from constant 100% which is great its just the processes also i visited this https://www.pcreview.co.uk/startup and i have hundreds of processes there but just internet up and there were hundreds that were bad with the X sign so would i end those processes or will it mess with my PC?

 

[muckshifter]

Floppy, Spy Sweeper has a 'real-time' scanner/protection just like MSAS.

MSAS when it was owned by Giant was not free either, but cost a lot more, now it is free ... now, as I have already paid for my subscriptions with Spy Sweeper, I may as well use it ... however, Spy Sweeper repeatedly beats Ad-Aware at detecting 'real' threats and both repeatedly beat SBS&D.

You know as well as I do that cookies are really quite benign.

I’m just trying again to point out what is best … it’s then up to the individual whether they what to ‘pay for it’ or not.

 

[silver]

take a look at http://www.blackviper.com/ for which services you can disable

Sil

 

[betty02]

cant seem to find anything there?