Feb '03 Tools

Have you ever opened a number of programs on your computer and noticed that everything's working slower? Each program you run takes part of your computer's memory, leaving less available for the work you are doing. If you have too many going, not only will your system slow down, it may completely freeze up. Did you know that there are many programs that launch automatically when your operating system starts and are invisible to you?

What's hiding in your systray?

Take a look at those little icons down there at the far right side of your task bar. They are located in what's called your computer's system tray - more commonly referred to as the "systray". It contains programs that are always running whenever Windows is running. These programs provide a convenience, but they use system resources. If you don't recognize the icons in your systray, hover your cursor over them - each one will have a name that will appear briefly telling you what it is.

How did all those programs get into your systray?

When you install new software on your system, there is usually a selection someplace during the installation process that asks if you would like the program to start up with your system. Unfortunately, this option isn't always clearly apparent when you're installing a program and before you know it you've got 20 programs filling up your systray and running all the time in the background.

Some background programs are not only useless, but also invasive and wind up in your systray via Spyware. Spyware collects information about your system and sends it to their authors' companies. Spyware can use up system resources and clog your Internet connection's bandwidth. Spyware infiltrates via an ad system affiliated with programs such as Aureate, Web3000, or Gator. According to Dick Hazelegur's spyware list, the popular download manager Gozilla v.3.5, for instance, contains Aureate spyware, and Netzip uses an ad engine called Timesink..

How can you find out what programs are running in the background?

You can get an idea of how many programs are running by simultaneously pressing CRTL-ALT-DEL to bring up Windows' Close Program dialog box. Look through the the list of abbreviated software titles: it shows the applications and various other tasks running on your PC. All these are running on your system before you ever start working. The titles are abbreviated, so you may have trouble recognizing them.

How can you figure out what a program really is? Let's say you've found a program called Vsstat. Although you may not know what a Vsstat is, you can do a search for it on your computer. Go to Start... Find (In Windows XP this is called Search)... All Files or Folders.... type Vsstat.* in the file name area, and select the option to search your entire hard drive. Click Find Now (click Search in Windows XP) to begin the search. From the icon and folder information, you can see that Vsstat is part of the McAfee VirusScan package. From this point you can now try to determine whether or not it is a program you want to have running in the background all the time.

How can you remove or disable the systray programs?

There are various levels at which you can disable or shut down these programs. If you just want them disabled for your present session, right click on the icon in the system tray and click exit, disable, or close. Remember, when you restart your system, all those programs will activate again.

What if you want to remove them completely from your systray? That presents a little more of a challenge as it varies from one program to the next. Although it's not always easy to find, most programs usually have some sort of "option" or "preference" setting that will allow you to disable them from starting up when you start your system. Check through the program options and/or preferences and look for a checkbox or radio button that says something like, "show icon in systray" and deselect it.

If you cannot remove an auto-loading program by way of it's options/preferences, you will have to use MSCONFIG to do so. In Windows, select Start... Run... and then type MSCONFIG in the field and click OK. Once you launch msconfig, go to the Startup tab and uncheck only the programs that are familiar to you. Be careful what you disable. If you don't recognize a name, don't disable the program until you've researched it. Some of these components are necessary for your Windows environment to work correctly. You might also want to uncheck boxes one at a time, or a few at a time, restarting the system in between, to make sure it will still come up properly. Windows automatically provides a backup for the registry, in case something is changed that prevents it from starting. Remember, some programs you need to have running are Explorer, Task Manager, and any virus scan files.