i have programs that runn in the background and initialise on computer start up, this is really slowing down boot up. can i disable some of these programs without removing them from the hard drive, so i can use them when i need them and not have them running all the time.

did you check if there is anything in your startup folder?

where is it

start menu > programs > startup

if there are files in there, those programs will startup when windows starts, that is if you are using windows.

start >> run >> msconfig >> startup tab

From there you can disable and enable applications to run on boot.

Here's a great tool from probably the best Windows programmer around:

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html

cheers guys

I was going to mention MS Config too but I was beaten to it. You can also switch off most things from the actual program its launching in the preferences "Quicktime, Winamp Agent etc.."