Try This First
The Task Manager should always be your first tool in any system that's having trouble. If your computer appears to be locked up, a program is not responding, or things seem to be going really slow, the task manager can fix it for you. Although not a permanent fix, using the Task Manager correctly will allow you to follow the other guides in this computer help section.
Getting to the Task Manager
There are two ways to access the Task Manager. The easiest way is to right click on the Start Menu bar and select Task Manager from the popup window, as shown here. Sometimes you may not have the ability to move your mouse around. If this is the case you can hit the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys all at the same time.
Shut it Down!
If you did it correctly, you should see this window. We will be using the Processes tab, so you may need to click on that in order to get the view shown. Once you are there, it's a simple process to end any programs that are causing problems. You select the process from the list, and then click on End Process located in the bottom right of the window, as shown here. Don't worry, Windows XP won't let you shutdown any critical programs. You're not deleting or removing any programs, you are simply stopping them at that moment. Nothing permanent is happening to your system when using Task Manager.
What Should Be There?
There are 15 processes that have to be running in order to use your computer. If you look here, you will see the list of what should be running. The only ones that don't need to be there are:avgcc32.exe - My anti-virus program
avgserv.exe - My anti-virus service
ScreenPrint32.exe - Program used to capture these screenshotsTaskmgr.exe is a special case, it's the Task Manager itself. If you choose to End Process on taskmgr.exe, you will close down the window and then have to open up the Task Manager again.
Help, there are too many of them!
If you are having computer problems, I suggest getting rid of everything but those 15 programs I mentioned. You'll have to end each process one by one. Sometimes Windows XP won't be able to shut it down right away, so it'll pop up a window asking if you'd like to End Now. Go ahead and click that, it will end the program. Remember, you're not deleting anything, only stopping the programs from running. No permanent damage is being caused.
What in the world is that?
If you see a process that you have no idea about, and can't figure out what it's doing, your best bet is to type the name exactly as it's written into Google and see what everyone else thinks about it. This is a good method for finding out what's plaguing your system. If you still can't find any useful information, feel free to fill out this form and I'll see if I can help you out.