Unwanted Programs running in the background

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I have some unwanted programs running in the background.
One is a some type of speech tool. I dont know where it came from. And i have few other programs that load when Windows first starts could you tell me how to get stop these programs from automatically loading when I turn on my computer.

Thanks
Professor Falken

 

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Try uninstalling unwanted programs and then check in Program Files for any part of the file left behind. If you don’t want to delete the files try this go to Start|Run and enter msconfig. In the window that comes up there is a tab called Start-up. Click that and you get a list of things that are loaded automatically when you turn on your computer. Uncheck the boxes that you do not want to run at start-up. It will not remove the program from your computer but it should help stop unwanted programs running.

 

Once uninstalled, try something like Norton Utilities to sort out any broken links, invalid ActiveX controlls and unwanted Dlls.
Or Crap Cleaner is quite good.

 

I've had similar problems in the past, and found these utilities (all free) useful;

http://www.windowsstartup.com/startupinspector.php

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/autoruns.html

http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm

Also, this site has a fairly good list of what various processes are. I think I might have got this link from another thread on here...

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Hope this helps

 

Don't forget that msconfig (type the name into the run box) will show most of the things being run, and where they are being started from.

Harry.