Control startup programs
One of the most common reasons for computer performance to suffer is too many programs running in the background. Very often a lot of things get loaded at startup and cause the system to run slowly. It’s a very bad habit of many programs to stick themselves into the background whether you want them there or not and I have discussed managing startup programs and services at my education site. There are a number of utilities to help with this problem but one called Autoruns from Sysinternals is certainly one of the best. It may be more detailed than many average PC users want to deal with but experienced users will certainly like it. It’s free and can be downloaded here.
Another program for controlling what starts up and a lot of other things is one of my very favorite utilities, WinPatrol. It’s also free but you really ought to support BillP and buy a license. It’s well worth the price of $30. The program has recently been updated again and can be obtained here. This program will help guard your system against spyware and other problems.