Empty that Tray! Running lean and clean…
July 23, 2007 Posted by Jeff in : DIY, How-to, Microsoft, Tips , trackback,
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There was Real Player, some kind of game cr*p, AOL, an HP toolbox (but they had a Lexmark printer!), MSN Messenger, Quicktime, 2 different spyware scanners, and a bunch of other silly things that are totally not needed. And that’s just the stuff I can see. I decided to check the other start areas using a neat little non-installing tool from mlin.net called “Startup Control Panel”(please donate to the site if you use it!).
Not only was I able to clean up the system tray, but I was able to manage the startup items in all 5 areas of the operating system where they reside (yes 5 different places in windows!) . Just be careful with this tool. If you don’t know what something is for, don’t just remove it, look it up first and decide if it’s tray-worthy.
If you’re not using MSN Messenger, take it out of the tray, there’s no need to have it running, it’s a resource hog. So is Real Updater, and all those media player preloaders, they are not needed.. If you have at least a P4 1ghz, you’re not going to notice any significant difference in the program startup times. Get rid of that S–T!
Well, 2 reboots later, I got the system running lean and mean within 15 minutes. The customer was happy, and I knew I’d be back in a few months again, after they install more junk. Thanks Microsoft, for making such a vulnerable OS. Keeps us guys in biz.
If your tray doesn’t look like the picture here, you might want to give me a call 
Just like your toaster oven, the tray needs to be emptied once in a while.
-=Jeff Gross=-
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Comments»
Hehehe lol@ Realplayer and Quicktime startup entries. Why use that stupid bloatware anyway? Its been ages since I used either of those…not since QT/Real alternative became available anyway. The ‘alternative’ versions are much leaner, non-intrusive and stable.
Regular PC maintainence is key to keeping the PC running smoothly. No rocket science there, but most users dont’ know or can’t be bothered. A weekly virus scan with AVG/Avira/AVS/Avast followed by a spybot S&D + Adaware scan should clean up the nasties. Then spring cleaning with Ccleaner followed by a solid defrag with the excellent Diskeeper defragmenter should round off the job.
Apart from the obvious point of not letting junk startup with XP, a good security scan +diskcleanup + proper disk defragmentation is all the average home user needs to keep their systems running along nicely.