how can I tell what programs are running in the background of my computer? it seems to be running slow?

Answer 1

Your comp might be running slow for two reasons
(a) a lot of back ground processes
b) A lot of programs are starting on startup.
consider (a)
if you have windows XP download windows defender (as far as i know it is available only for windows XP)

consider (b)
To reduce the effective start up time of a program the developers usually divide the program into parts and load some into the main memory. If only the necessary program are loaded then its fine and good else lots of programs are going to load in startup time thus creating a kind of "bottle neck". Although unused programs are paged out, eventually this increases the effective startup time of windows.

Also viruses can induce slower response time and/or increase startup time. You can actually configure most "legitimate" programs to disable at startup and most viruses can be defeated by using an anti-virus program.

Answer 2

Bring up Task Manager, either by pressing ctrl alt and delete, or right clicking on your taskbar and selecting it from the menu. Under the processes tab there is a list of what is running as well as the amount of memory being used by each. To find out what each one is you will want to write down the exe file name and do a search in google for it, just to be sure it isn't something critical to the system. You can then end process to stop it if it isn't needed.

Also, you may want to download a program like CCleaner and look under the Tools button for Startup, which will show you the programs that start with your computer and allows you to delete them from startup so you can avoid having them running all the time.

http://www.ccleaner.com

And finally, BlackViper's website lists the services that run in Windows XP and Vista and tells you what they do, and what is safe to disable or set to manual startup, which will save resources.

http://www.blackviper.com

Answer 3

Using a registry cleaner can fix your computer and then make your computer faster,Why?the reason is that there may be some regsitry errors and remnant,corrupt files and temp files in your computer to cause "computer slow".
Everytime you install and uninstall software on your computer and surfing online you create junk in the computer registry.over time, the registry can grow to enormous proportions, especially if the various programs you've installed do not do a good job of deleting and/or updating it's Registry entries.You need to scan and clean your computer with registry cleaner to make it fast.Good Regisry Cleaner will improve your computer and Internet performance dramatically!It even can speed up your computer by 300% or more!
There are some comparison and review of TOP 5 registry cleaners.
http://www.makepcfaster.info
You can download and scan your computer for free.

Answer 4

Ctrl,Alt ,Del at the same time it will show you what your looking for and your comp is running slow not enough memory or hard drive is to old for your system your running or you have too many programs downloaded

Answer 5

click on "start" and then "run" . Type in "msconfig" without the quotation marks. When it comes up, go to the tab that says "start up" and it will show you all the programs that automatically run when you boot your computer and continue to run in the background. You can take out whatever ones you don't want to automatically start and run.

Answer 6

Just press ctrl+alt+del .... you will get the task manager..In that go for the processes tab...you will have the list of all the programs running on your system...

Your system if being slow.... First delete any of the temporary files...You might have loads of it on your system.... You can check this by going for search... all files & folders.... giving name as *.tmp

Answer 7

Click Start and then Run. In the Run box type "msconfig" without the quotes and click ok. In the Config utility that opens, click "Startup". You can turn off any and all software that is loading with windows that you wish. Be sure to leave your anti virus and firewall running.

Answer 8

Press ctrl-alt-del and look at the Task Manager to see processes running and how many resources they are using.

Answer 9

Bring up the task manager by going CTRL ALT DEL.

Answer 10

Right-click the taskbar and select the Task Manager.