Please Help With Windows Task Manager

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I have the following Processes running. What can I get rid of?

iexplore.exe
msiexec.exe
explorer.exe
mcagent.exe
OUTLOOK.EXE
alg.exe
mcuimgr.exe
ctfmon.exe
GroveMonitor.exe
rundll32.exe
ISUPM.exe
USPTip.exe
AGRSMMSG.exe
EM_EXEC.EXE
McNASvc.exe
mcmscsvc.exe
mcsysmon.ese
LSSrvc.exe
iviRegMgr.exe
DevScv.exe
SpySweeper.exe
spoolsv.exe
taksmgr.exe
ULCDRSvr.exe
svchost.exe - about five of these
nvsvc32.exe
svchost.exe
OneTouch.exe
MXOALDR.EXE
nTuneService.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
sqlservr.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
MpfSrv.exe
Mcshied.exe
McProxy.exe
System
System Idel Process

Couple things . . . .

I have smoking hot internet access. My average speed test is > 10,000 kbps down and > 1,500 kbps up. I use comcast business class. Problem is opening new pages seems to take too long. Downloading stuff is incredible. But web browsing is not what it should be.

2nd issue I have is Spy Sweeper. I had a trial version in. Tried to uninstall. I let a bunch of crap behind and always tries to load itself during boot up asking for a serial number, which of course I do not have since it was a trial. I can't get rid of this. How could I get rid of this forever?

Thanks
Jeff

[kmk]

Google for "autoruns". Once you downloaded it, run it. It will show all the programs and services that are autostarted.

Be careful when you delete the entries you don't want particularly with Services class.

You can do this through other ways as well like right clicking on My Computer and choosing Manage option to disable Services.

[kmk]

Also, try to download "BoostSpeed" and TweakUI and play with these.

Particularly, BoostSpeed has lot of options to speedup your network and computer.
You will have to buy the version that lets you to do all that. The basic free version
doesn't do much.

You can't disable many of the Services. Also, switch to Firefox and Safri. Disable VirusScan during boot. Make it "on demand".

[rjwaldren]

I just did a quick google on a few of the processes that caught my attention. There are a few that are probably unnecessary but wouldn't really affect browsing specifically (except McAffee and Spysweeper). There are a few free tools and system changes that would make the system snappier though. Steer clear of the Optimizers (memory, HDD, Internet) that are all over they're mostly scams.

Do you have a hardware router/firewall? If so is McAffee necessary. The McAffee and Norton Security suites will drag a system to a crawl. I'd suggest a lightweight AV like AVG-Free and just a hardware firewall. Some will disagree, but routine scans and a little caution online takes care of the majority of internet "threats".

Spysweeper is a resource hog also. No single Anti-spyware tools finds everything. I recently ran 3 different tools each finding different spy packages. Combining Ewido (AVG Anti-spy - free) and Adaware (free version) nearly always cleans the system up well.

CCleaner does a great job at cleaning out the cruft from both the filesystem and the registry.

If your using the Comcast bundled browser remove it and install the vanilla IE without all of the Addons.

For IE specifically you can edit the registry to increase the number of concurrent http connections allowed to a server. This makes a noticable difference on a fast connection when a page has alot of elements. A quick google turned up this page - There's a "speed tweak" reg patch is toward the bottom that will do the job.
http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/tweaks.asp

Firefox helps alot also... IE is like a spyware magnet. Just keep IE around for the sites that give Firefox trouble.

For the processes search google or sites like http://www.processlibrary.com to determine if you really need them or not. And use MSCONFIG.MSC from START>RUN to keep them from running at startup.

http://www.blackviper.com
is a great guide to streamlining the way system services start and can really save alot of resources by simply not running the services that Microsoft or some thirdparty decided you should have but will likely never use.

Sorry for being long winded about it. But most everything here is pretty simple to do and can make even a clean install much more responsive.

[LinuxRandal]

It has been a few years since I was really running Windows. But if my memory serves me, you might just boot into safe mode, to see the processes, that Windows requires for starting as a base, to compare to the above site.

[kmk]

Cleaning up the system requires lot of effort. Then you need to maintain it.

After removing unnecessary programs from Startup, you can try the following

1. Uninstalling unnecessary programs (there are some shareware/freeware programs that can uninstall even broken installations.

2. registry clean

3. defraging your HD regularly. Schedule it to run every day or something like that (try http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...agmenter.shtml). This utility can defrag individual files. As a result, apps will start quicker). Try the power mode

4. Try Google's http://webaccelerator.google.com/

If you have lot of crap on your system, I'd start with clean installation of XP all over again if that is possible in your case.

[Rand]

Uninstall McAfee. It and Norton AV are notoriously bad.
+1 on the free Grisoft antivirus. It's small, non-interfering and keeps your system safe.

I would try ad-aware or spybot search and destroy next. Experience tells me that you probably have some spyware or malware slowing down your web browser.

A great tool you can use is Hijack This:
http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

It will show you all of the programs and services that windows is loading. Far better than Task Manager. It will also let you remove them.
Be Careful!!!
It's a powerful tool that will allow you to remove system essential services. I recommend Googling each service to see if it's something that's supposed to be there before removing it.

Hope that helps!

Good Luck,

[radhak]

Jeffrey,

Without checking up on each of your processes, I can see a couple that could be kicked out for substantial jump in performance.

Remember, if you kill any of these, the corresponding program aborts, so if you are in the middle of editing a word program, don't kill winword.exe !

Any microsoft product - Outlook, iExplorer. You don't need them all the time.
I see a couple of servers running - sqlservr.exe is for MS SQL Server (database) - do you need it all the time?
ulcdrsvr.exe - is Ulead's product to allow writing to DVD and CDs. I am pretty sure you need it only when you run Ulead.
usbtip.exe can be taken out too - it's a process from Pinnacle, not essential.
OneTouch.exe is from Maxtor, to enable backup at the touch of a button. But you need it only when you do the backup, other times it just consumes CPU and memory.
I also see a load of programs from McAffee clogging up your system. Good advice from others - you don't want either of the big two anti-viruses on your machine. AVG-free should be good, or you should get ZoneAlarm which has AV and firewall bundled.

Now, after identifying all these, how do you (a) kill them (b) keep them from starting up? Try WinPatrol from http://www.winpatrol.com/; the free version should do for you nicely. It categorises and lists all processes, allows you to manipulate them individually - kill one, disable another, etc. and it's memory/cpu footprint is so tiny that you could keep it running all the time. It'd alert you if any new program wants to set itself into the startup.

Hope that helps,
Rad

3. defraging your HD regularly. Schedule it to run every day or something like that.

Regular defrag is good, but obsessively often may not be - this is a hard-drive intensive activity and you don't want to heat up your HDD too much. You don't need defragging more than once a quarter, if that.

[kmk]

Defrag frequency

If you use your system just for browsing, emailing etc then I agree that daily defrag is overkill.

My system is my development machine. I compile code every day and several times during the day.
Lot of files are getting generated, removed etc. So, daily defrag is necessary for me.

Another option I'd consider to speed up your system is partioning your HD into multiple drives. Reserve C: for OS and programs, D: for data etc. Every time you install a new program, defrag C: after the installation. This will
ensure that programs stay in HD in a contiguous area all the time.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Another option I'd consider to speed up your system is partioning your HD into multiple drives. Reserve C: for OS and programs, D: for data etc. Every time you install a new program, defrag C: after the installation. This will
ensure that programs stay in HD in a contiguous area all the time.

I have two internal drives. C has OS and programs and D is used for video and other data storage. I have a networked drive which saves archive stuff.