wayne21

Hi everybody, I'll just say I don't have any idea what i'm looking in the processes that are running when I check my task manger but I don't think I need 35 of them running to lok at a web page or play a game. how do I tell what i need and what, how do I remove the others. I'm running
a boot leg copy of XP pro. ON a unit bulit with AMD-2500/ abit NF-7-V2, 512 memory. I have spybot, cws shredder, & ad-adware se personal but none of this helps. yes I need to learn more about what to do to keep the unit up and runnuig well. ANY HELP would greatly appricated.

wayne21

Coppertop

Well I currently have 67 processes running on my work tablet PC. Thirty five sounds about right. Post a screencap of what's running.

Smackre

with nothing open i run at 25. i realy think 35 is not that bad. on a normal day i prolly got 35 running with 2-3 apps open plus some backround apps i use. it shouldnt slow you dont i wouldnt think. Realy i wouldnt be worred about 35 apps running. if it does slow you down then id suggest 1024 ram. 1 gig ram is a must if you ask me now a days.

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KnifeMissile

I assure you that that is quite normal. What you must understand is that your computer is a very complex environment and it is doing far more than you realise.

For instance, you should find a process called explorer.exe. Wonder what that does? That's your desktop! That's what allows all those icons on your desktop to launch programs and open folders (which is also just launching a program but many don't know that). It also controls the funny window at the bottom of your screen that tells you what windows are open.
Another one you should find is winlogon.exe. That's the program that allowed you to logon to your computer! Because you're still logged on, it is still running.
Yet another is rundll32.exe, and this process allows your other programs to load and share DLLs, so they don't all have to duplicate their own code.

I'm sure you're beginning to see how pedantic the roles of these prcesses are and how 35 of them really isn't surprising, even when you don't appear to be running any applicatons!

phukraut

It's also not unusual for a service that's running to have it's own svchost entry in the process list. Those can add up.

wayne21

I thank all of you but how do you get a screen cap as coppertop stated? The brief but helpful bit from Knifemissle was also enlihten. Thanks again
wayne21

guthmund

Okay, wayne let me walk you through it. (click on them to make them larger)

1- Get everything situated on the screen the way you want it as if you were going to
take a picture of it. Here's a shot of one of my generic-ass public workstations.



2- Once everything is how you want it, hit the print screen button on your keyboard.
This sends a screenshot of whatever is on the screen to the clipboard for retrieval


3- Open up MS Paint (it's universal and can easily do the job) and 'paste' the image from the clipboard. You might have to do a little dinkering around with it because Paint ain't perfect.


4- Last, I'm sure you already know this, but I feel I have to mention it. Save the image as a jpeg anywhere you like. Just remember where you put it. Host it (I prefer Imagevenue for stuff like this) and link it here, so we can help you figure out what needs to be done next.



Hope this helps.

Edit: It isn't perfect, see? I managed to screw up the first and last images.

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KnifeMissile

Another good tip about taking screenshots is that while Print Screen takes a screen catpure, Alt+Print Screen takes an image capture of just the active window! That can save you a lot of image editing because that's usually all you want to do!

wayne21

http://img17.imagevenue.com/img.php?...7_untitled.JPG
If i did this right he is the list. wayne21

Psycho Dad

You can also go to http://www.processlibrary.com/ and check out the running processes you have to see if they are something you need or simply do not want on your PC. And there are many other sites similar to processlibrary.com to get a comparison.

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KnifeMissile

Well, what little we can see looks okay, although I do wonder why realsched.exe is running twice.

You know, you can save yourself some bandwidth and a little effort if you simply used ALT+Print Screen to get just the window in question. Trust me, you'll like it!

Oh, and next time, you might want to actually show all the processes. You can try doing that my making Task Manager really tall, or taking more than one screen shot and pasting them together, or something...

wayne21

This was my first try at using the format to show the process, but thanks for the help in trying to teach me the proper way to show what i truly want not just part of it. All of you are very helpful and patient with my lack of knowledge. thanks again! Wayne21

guthmund

Alt+Print Screen! /slaps forehead

I knew that....

Oh well, what concerns me more is that there seems to be multiple instances of a lot of different things running.



Something is screwy....

I have to ask...when was the last spyware & anti-virus check on this particular system? I'd also like to see a list of what's starting up when the computer starts...

to do that click START --->Run---->type 'msconfig'---->and click the startup tab to the far right. I don't need a screenshot, but a list would be handy.

Don't worry wayne, there's a lot of know-how that can be tapped into here. Someone, somewhere is going to be able to set it straight

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wombatman

Guthmund, check the user name next to those multiple copies. There one's for Ken, Lauren, and System in some cases. I don't know if that's normal as I don't have multiple users, but it could explain the multiple showings there.

guthmund

I did some dinkering around at home on my xp home machine, and sure enough the task manager will display the processes and programs running for each user logged on to the box.

Hmmmmm....

Well, then....stop using multiple accounts. Seperate desktops are nice, but if one user has 87 things running in the background while the current user has 87 different things running....well, it's no wonder the machine is bogging down.

If you like using seperate accounts, then, at least completely log off the one user before logging in as another.

Either way, you should probably still pare down what programs and such are starting when the pc boots up. I mean, there's no reason to run one instance of qttask and realsched at start-up let alone two. Processlibrary is a good place to begin and what can't be found there can surely be 'googled.'

There's no reason to run 45 processes when 20 will do you just as well.

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KnifeMissile

Hold on now, I don't recall the original poster complaining that his "machine is bogging down." He simply saw that there were more processes than he can account for and was afraid that he might be the victim of some malware. Unless those processes are using up any scarce resource, such as processing time (which can be checked on just the next tab!), there's really no harm in running them, regardless of how many processes he has running.

So, if running multiple accounts is convenient and you have the memory and processing power (among other things) to spare, then why the hell not? Besides, most programs do absolutely nothing, most of the time, and they will probably get swapped out if left unused for long periods of time, so even memory shouldn't be a big issue...

guthmund

Sorry, I had too many things going on....I got confused. Mea culpa.

I use a variety of sources to rid myself of the superfluous crap. Processlibrary...google...
Blackviper's site was running last I checked it (it's been a while), but it doesn't seem to be up right now. I only have a few minutes, but I managed to find this...

http://www.dead-eye.net/WinXP%20Services.htm

Sorry for getting off on the wrong path there, I hope this post is more helpful.

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WillyPete

There are a lot of services you can prevent from starting up that are set to do so by default with any regular WinXP installation.

A lot of them are unnessesary.
Take care in closing them though, and follow a good guide of what you can and can't disable.

this is my favourite site for XP settings:
http://www.tweakxp.com/SearchResults...&Submit=Search

There's usually some services that there are a lot of, like 'svchost' which is a generic service name that does any number of things.

A lot of them are there from your PC manufacturer to bring you 'cool' features, but really are seldom used and bog it down. Laptops are famous for these.
Others like 'QTTask' just sit there looking for new updates or waiting to run applications a millisecond faster. Do you seriously need to have a program waiting to startup Quicktime 24/7?
OSA is the office startup accelerator. You don't need it.


As an aside, if you simply MUST have different desktops, Microsoft took a page out of the Solaris/*nix pages and released a Powertool that will allow you to set up 4 different desktops.
great for switching from the porn site to a work spreadsheet desktop!!

go to the microsoft homepage and use their search for 'Powertools'.

Some other tasty ones too like 'Image Resizer' that lets you select a bunch of images and rightclick and select a new option to resize them all. Very fast.