As an alternative, you can try the tiny (and completely free) process viewer
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...id,6102,00.asp
to see what's running.
I will also recommend using startup control panel to check what's in your startup (I don't know if it will look in spots that msconfig doesn't)
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
Other then a process viewer/task manager thing, the only other things I can think of are some sort of windows rot and trying a registry cleaner/unused dll checker.