What I do is google the names in the startup list if I do not know what they are and if it is just one of the programs that does not need to start at boot I take it out of the list, you want to leave your antivirus and firewall and windows processes.
I have found blackvipers site a big help he has lists of services which can be turned off.

Windows Services ~ Includes complete explanations of each service and advice on which services you can safely disable. be sure you look under the proper Operating system list.
also he tells you how to disable things in services rather than by msconfig which is the best way to do it.

Inserting "startup" (sans quotes) in the search engine on the forum's homepage will produce a plethora of information regarding this topic as it is commonly requested.

In fact just recently I provided two links to resources on another thread. The thread is tagged below.

DA

Here is a link that might be useful: Qttask.exe Question

I use the Startup under "Tools" in CCleaner. You can disable rather than remove something in your startup if you are not sure about it. Much easier than using msconfig.

Here is a link that might be useful: CCleaner

Raven, I checked out the site and even with the info give I didn't understand if I needed it or not. LOL

sillymesillyne
I know I go to start>run>msconfig>start up. I need to know the list of programs that shouldn't be taken off the list. I know that on my old computer with windows 98 there was a list of programs that were needed to properly start up.
---------------------------------------------------
You can follow other people's suggestions on what to leave
enabled in Start up.
As far as doing your computer harm, that won't happen if you disable everything in Start up. I've done this several
time. You can still go back and enable select items if you
want. I diabled everything before I made this post.
I than went back to msconfig to check and nvCpl had rechecked itself. I won't leave it that way, I just saying
you won't harm your windows XP computer.
cg

You can always start in Safe mode and open task manager and take a picture. All the things running you need.

stargazer if you click on blackvipers site on the version of Windows you have it takes you to the page for that list of services, then there it list all services you might find on a pc, he then gives a list of if it can be set to manual, auto, disabled etc, this is doing it through services rather than msconfig which is a better way to do it and that way sets it for all users.
all versions of XP x86 (32-bit) running Service Pack 3
that would be the link for anyone running xp service pack3
Configuration Information
he explains the various options on settings, and also explains how to find the services area to do the changes.
Service Configurations
under that heading you will see the full list of services you might find listed on your pc, to the right of each service name you look for your particular version of XP, Home, Pro which will be most people, then see what he suggest under that heading for each service if he says manual set it to manual if it says disable that means it can be set to disable, if he says auto it should be set to auto.

Hope that helps, I have been a follower of blackviper since I got online, he has a tremendous following and does an awesome job with his info.

Hey, thanks all. I appreciate it. I ended up using Windows Defender to get rid of most of the junk. All the info. given was good to know, though.

Thanks again,

Silly