So many processes! A way to manage them?

Make sure that programs you don't need aren't set to run at start up.SmashBrosLegend

How do you manage that? Tell me! System mechanic said it took care of that, but I still always have tons of stuff running.

You can add RAM for one, it's not that expensive an upgrade. Then minimize the multi tasking your pc has to do. Close unnecessary programs and lessen the start-up programs (programs like itunes and YM have teh feature of automatically being run as soon as you log in)-kaz3-

So how do you do that? How do you lesson the start-up programs or check what programs are set to start up when I log in?

You can add RAM for one, it's not that expensive an upgrade. Then minimize the multi tasking your pc has to do. Close unnecessary programs and lessen the start-up programs (programs like itunes and YM have teh feature of automatically being run as soon as you log in)-kaz3-

Welcome to the new era of lazy programmers. I'm a software engineer, and I've seen firsthand the laziness of some computer programmers. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot you can do. Lots of programs today are sluggish because programmers prefer to use garbage collection to free memory instead of manually using free() to free datatypes and objects without references.

Faster computers have come at a price... they have allowed programmers to take shortcuts at the cost of performance. Why not? Who needs all this speed anyway...

What would I do? Make sure your computer is virus and spyware free. It IS common for Windows Vista to take up around 1GB of memory idle.

AmyMizuno

I don't know how all this **** works. And I run windowsXP. I've been rethinking everything, and I think it's my internet connection....not my computer. I usually have 1-3% CPU usage while I'm not doing anything. If I'm watching a video it usually goes up to about 15-20%. If I'm virus scanning it also goes up a bit. I don't know what all this "RAM" stuff is, but I do know that my computer is taking up only about 12% of my hard drive.

You should really go to the computer hardware board, but basically...

Press ctrl+alt+delete and hold them all down to either open up task manager automatically (in XP) or go to the useful task manager/log off/lock/etc. menu (in Vista). In stask manager, the first window shows you the programs running in the open, mostly consisting of things you can see in the taskbar, and if you click the next tab to the right, it shows you programs running in the background. Most of these are extremely unstable Windows processes which you cannot mess with upon pain of computer death. So don't.

I find it funny that you say Windows has a crazy and erratic system and then name Apple iTunes as one of the problems. :P

RAM is

Random

Access

Memory

It contains useful information that is needed for your system while it is running. For instance, your password when you're logging on. More of this memory means it can remember more things, such as programs which are running, at a time. More RAM is taken up when more programs are running.

The CPU should always have about 5% taken up at one time. The CPU is just like the brain, and just because your brain isn't doing an SAT doesn't mean it isn't being used at all. That's just like the CPU.

You should really go to the computer hardware board, but basically...

Press ctrl+alt+delete and hold them all down to either open up task manager automatically (in XP) or go to the useful task manager/log off/lock/etc. menu (in Vista). In stask manager, the first window shows you the programs running in the open, mostly consisting of things you can see in the taskbar, and if you click the next tab to the right, it shows you programs running in the background. Most of these are extremely unstable Windows processes which you cannot mess with upon pain of computer death. So don't.

I find it funny that you say Windows has a crazy and erratic system and then name Apple iTunes as one of the problems. :P

RAM is

Random

Access

Memory

It contains useful information that is needed for your system while it is running. For instance, your password when you're logging on. More of this memory means it can remember more things, such as programs which are running, at a time. More RAM is taken up when more programs are running.

The CPU should always have about 5% taken up at one time. The CPU is just like the brain, and just because your brain isn't doing an SAT doesn't mean it isn't being used at all. That's just like the CPU.

DarCowAlways

Okay, so maybe I should get more ram? I didn't think I was using much memory. Like I said, only about 12% of my hard drive is being used. I'm not sure if that's ram or not. I know about the task manager. I actually did what some of these people suggested and stopped some of the programs from running on startup. However, ever since I did that, my computer is different. Now, when I adjust the volume or mute using my keyboard, it looks different. It's just a different font and color. It was green before and just said volume. Now it's really light whitish blue and says it's increasing or decreasing volume. The only other thing I've noticed that has changed is when I turn the computer on, there's a new black screen that says something about select opperating system. It just does it on it's own so i don't have to do anything. Other than that, everything is the same. Now, I adjusted the startup programs with msconfig. There were only about 15, so I just googled the name of each one to make sure they weren't critical programs. Well none of the ones I turned off were critical at all. I didn't mess with anything that could have anything to do with the keyboard, or sound, or anything like that.

One more thing you should know is that I moved the file I386 to a file in my documents, so it can't really do anything. I did this so I cold use the uxtheme multipatcher.

See, I know stuff about software.