I am using MS Vista on my computer. I have noticed that when I log on, a number of programs are also running in the background using a lot of the computer’s memory. Could this be the reason why my computer is slow?
Yes this is one of the reasons why your computer would be running slow especially if your computer has very limited memory available. These programs are called startup programs and are configured to run as soon as windows boots and loads. You may not be using some of these programs on a day to day basis but are made ready in case you would like to load them so that they'll load much faster, hence they are started during system startup. You may disable some of them or all of them, except for your security software and the applications that you need, by using the system configuration utility. This can be accessed through typing msconfig in the search box after your click Start. Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the applications that you don't want to load at startup by default.
