Personally I would stop all those Canon entries plus Roxio, (Roxio is your CD/DVD burning software) ituneshelper, Picasa and Google references.

Others might offer suggestions too but for the rest of those entries you really need to Google each entry and decide if you need the underlying program running or not.

Thanks, Owbist. I'll disable those programs at startup. Do I need those google programs at all? I don't know what google desktop is and whether it just was pre-installed or snuck in there when I downloaded something else (before I got wise from this forum about checking those things carefully).

Also this

realschd (program files\/com) updates for Real player,

Uninstall real player through the add/remove programs list if you are not using it and it will get rid of it.

sprtcmd (program files\dell) Dell Support stop this one. You can keep the dell support program if you want it but there is really no reason to have this running..

lynn I don't recall but do you happen to have revo uninstaller on your pc? I ask because it has a very nice feature to it that allows you to view all that stuff that starts at boot up and it tells you what it is in understandable language and you can disable it also, if you do have it you might want to look at that.

There are many good programs that help you decide what is needed and exactly what some of those entries belong to.
Win Patrol, Start up lite are a couple of them.
Help! My computer is slow!
WinPatrol

I also like to personally look them up so I know exactly what they are and if it is safe to disable them, some should be disabled in services preferably rather than in msconfig also.
one of my long time resources for services and other info has been blackvipers website, he has it all listed per windows version so you can look to the list on the left to pick out which applies to your windows.
www.BlackViper.com

A visit to Pacs-Portal and/or Answers That Work may be in order.

DA

Thanks everyone. I did try to disable the programs Owbist recommended from the startup. It suggested I reboot - which I did, but it also said that access was denied and I might have to log in as the system administrator to make some of those changes. I have no idea how to log in as system administrator. This is my computer and I'm the only one who uses it, but a computer tech guy did set it up for me a year ago - and I don't know if he set me up as administrator or not. How can I check this out. [This is a separate question, but may be related. I think I need to log on as system administrator and secure my network - and find out my network's name and password. Again, I don't remember setting this up - but perhaps the tech guy did and asked me to pick a password and name - I think I would know which password I would have picked if he asked me. He might have had me type it in. I'm having trouble keeping my new laptop connected - and it is asking me the name of the network and other information. Sorry - I probably shouldn't ask this here, but I think it's related to logging on as system administrator].

Anyway, now when I start the computer, I have to go through a series of prompts to acknowledge that this is not the default start up. So this isn't saving time to get up and running. I'm sure there's another way to do this.

I don't think I use real player - but how would I know what I use if I'm on a site like Amazon or Youtube and listen to a clip/video. If I'm not using realplayer, is there a default windows media player (I vaguely recall this) that gets used. Which is the best default music player to have?
Is there any reason I would want to keep realplayer? Can I always get it later for free if I realize later I want it?

Ravencajun - I do have revouninstaller and got a list of programs on the pc. But I don't know how to view what starts at boot up? When i tried to press "Hunter" mode, it just exists revo uninstaller. I was able to click on the programs and see that there are other probably useless ones - like netzero, earthlink set up files, - but when I click the link to google them, many sites state it's crapware and should be removed, but yahoo answers said best to leave it and be sure. So I don't know and haven't yet figured out how to get revo uninstaller to make suggestions.

If I have revo uninstaller, would the WinPatrol still be good to run in addition? Can you tell me what you mean by disbling some of the startup programs in services rather than in msconfig? Not sure how to do that.

Thanks.
Lynn.

in the revo uninstaller one part of the program is Auto Run Manager this is the area you would want to use for your startup info. If you already have it then you could take advantage of it for this type of application.
Auto Run Manager

Any time you make a change in the startup area in msconfig you will immediately see that warning when you reboot the pc stating you have made changes and it is not set at default, simply click in the little box that says do not show this again and it will stop doing that till the next time you change something in there, you have to do that each time you make a change.
Some things you can stop in services area rather than in startup area is what I was meaning. This article goes into a bit of explanation on services.
Services in XP

this is one of the descriptions of win patrol
"Do you want to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer? Then WinPatrol is the program for you. With WinPatrol, in your system tray, you can monitor system areas that are often changed by malicious programs. You can monitor your startup programs and services, cookies and current tasks. Should you need to, WinPatrol allows you to terminate processes and enable, or disable, startup programs. There are additional features that make WinPatrol a very powerful addition to your security applications."
Many people really like it there is a free and pay version.