Before we get into how to free up your system resources, let's try to define what they are. System resources are areas of memory that are used by the input manager (user.exe) and the graphics display interface manager (gdi.exe) to keep track of all the windows that are open in a particular Windows session and to draw the objects that are needed by these windows that are open. Each program that is started takes up a piece of this area of memory. Print programs and Internet programs take up a lot more of this area than programs that deal with word processing or accounting programs.

You can look at the amount of system resources that you have free by right clicking on My Computer and then left clicking on Properties. Click on the Performance tab to view the amount of free system resources. Most systems will start with 80 to 90% free system resources when starting Windows. If your system is in the 60 or 70% range on a normal boot then you probably
have a lot of programs that are starting up every time Window starts. This is what we will try to correct today.

The first item that I would like to look at is called the System Tray. This is the area that is located next to the clock. Most of the programs that we install on our systems want to put a new icon in the System Tray. Every icon that you see in the system tray is using resources. If you have enough of the programs starting up every time your system boots, you will see a significant slowdown when starting your computer. You do not have to put up with the slowness. Some of the programs need to be there and others do not. McAfee and Norton Antivirus are two of the programs that I feel are a necessity. If you are running a firewall because you are a cable or DSL subscriber, then the icon for ZoneAlarm should be there. If you are using BlackIce, you need to read this article by Steve Gibson.

The article is a detailed account of the recent Denial of Service attacks that forced his Website off the net for a period of time. Very interesting reading for those of you that still do not have antivirus protection or any type of hardware or software firewall to protect you. Feel free to e-mail me if you still do not see the need to have a firewall after reading the entire article.

What other icons are in the system tray. If you use America Online, you probably have an icon in the system tray as well as in the Quick Launch toolbar. You can right click on the icon in the system tray and then click on close. The program will ask if you would like it to run the next time you start Windows. If you would like to save the resources that the program uses the answer no and it should be removed from the Startup folder. This is not a program that you need to start every time your computer boots.

This is especially true for newer systems that have the Quick Launch toolbar. This is simply a collection of icons that do not take up resources. Many other programs install themselves into the startup when they are initially setup. Many of the messaging programs as well as a number of the accounting packages add shortcuts that do not need to be there. Printing software is another that feels the need to take your resources from the beginning of the Windows session. Right click on each of them to close the ones that you do not need. As you should know by now, I only consider antivirus and firewall in this category. Anything else should not be starting until I choose for it to start.

After you have closed each of the icons in the system tray that you do not need, press ctrl-alt-del on your keyboard to bring up the task manager. This will be a list of the programs that are running in the background. Make notes on the names of the programs that are still running. You should be able to look at the name of the file in the list and get an idea of which program it belongs to. Are these programs that need to be running every time Windows starts, or are they running because that is how they got installed and no one ever turned them off? If the answer is the later, then we need to turn them off. You can press ctrl-alt-del once, highlight the program that you want to stop and then click on End Task. Explorer and systray are programs that need to be running every time Windows starts so don't try to close them. Any others are fair game. This method will only close the programs that you stop until you restart them or Windows. This is not a permanent solution.

Now let's look at how to stop some of these extra programs from starting every time you load Windows. If you are using Windows 98, click on Start, Run, and type msconfig and then click on OK. This will start the System Configuration Utility. With Windows 95 and 98, there is usually no need to have anything in the Autoexec.bat or the Config.sys files. This program will allow you to uncheck each of the items to temporarily stop them from starting when Windows starts. This is good because it is very easy to put the items back if you stop a program and then decide that you need it to run. There are four items that will be listed in the Startup tab that should not be removed, ScanRegistry, SystemTray, LoadPowerProfile, and TaskMonitor. Uncheck anything else within the startup tab and then restart your system when prompted. Some of the systems that I see have two pages of programs that start with Windows. These customers are amazed when I show them the increase in speed with just the removal of the Startup items.

Msconfig creates a folder to hold the unchecked items that were originally in your Startup folder called Disabled Startup Items. This folder can be deleted to get rid of the unneeded program shortcuts. It also creates entries within the registry with a minus sign in front of the name of the normal key. The Run and Runservices keys within the User and Local Machine are the ones that are changed. The -Run or -Runservices keys can simply be deleted to remove the items from appearing within the msconfig program. If you are using Windows 95 you can click on Start, Settings, Taskbar. This will bring up a box labeled Taskbar Properties. Click on the tab labeled Start Menu Programs and then click on Remove. This will bring up a box with all of the Start Menu in it. Scroll down to the Startup folder and click on the plus sign to show the item within the folder. Highlight each of the items that you would like to remove and then click on Remove. After you are finished click on Close and then exit out of the program.

The next area that we will look at is within the Registry. You will need to edit the Registry in order to permanently remove the items you chose not to run with msconfig. As I stated before, if you do not have experience with the Registry, stay away from the delete key. Click on Start, Run, type regedit. The registry keys you are looking for are

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\-Run HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\-Run. 

If there are services that you chose not to run, they will be in a key named -RunServices. These keys can be deleted altogether or you can also delete individual programs within the keys. If you make a mistake and delete something that you should not — there could be problems that you do not want to deal with. It is safe for you to leave these keys in the registry since they will only be used by the msconfig program. Windows will ignore them since they have the minus sign in front. 

With the changes you have made, you should see a change for the better in the startup of your system. Starting fewer programs will speed up the amount of time that it takes for Windows to initialize. This will also raise the amount of free system resources that you have to start with. With less programs running, you will see a difference in the amount of time that it takes for programs that you want to run to load. A clean system will run with fewer problems than a system that is clogged with programs that do not need to be running. Now that you know how to get rid of them there should be no excuse for the slow systems that I have been seeing.