I have a Dell Inspiron 4000 (laptop) with a large number of items in the
start up menu (they seem to be related to the fact that it is a laptop such
as the touch pad, etc.).  Some time ago someone provided a link to a site
where you could see what each program does and whether it is "critical" or
not and these seemed to be important.

In general, should a laptop have a larger number of programs running at
startup or is this able to be changed?  I am running Windows 98SE and the
laptop takes a long time to boot up.  I have read that I can disable
programs one at a time to see if they are necessary and wonder if this plan
works as well with a laptop as with a desktop.

Andrew Wetzel
andrew@AndrewWetzel.com

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You can almost always remove everything from the "startup" folder under the
start menu. What you have to be a little more cautious about removing is
"Run" items in the registry. But since I only shutdown the computer once per
month, removing those items isn't as important to me as they used to be.
After a reboot, I go and kill any processes that I don't need running
anyway.

XP doesn't need to be shut down, or even hibernated. I use standby every
single day, many times per day. I have done so for the past 5 years just
fine. Battery life hasn't suffered any more so than any other method, and I
can start using my laptop in just seconds, any time of the day. I don't know
why people still shutdown or hibernate, besides for a longer period of time,
such as longer than 1 day. But if you're out longer than a day, your inbox
is piling up with RT ;)

http://www.eldergeek.com has info on critical processes, etc.

Steven Hong