Okay, let's face it, most of us, or at least in my case, have lost
control over Windows. DOS was pretty simple, there just weren't many
places for programs to "hide" but in Windows, sheesh, they can be fired
up automatically any number of ways.
This isn't always a bad thing, many of the gadgets and gizmos are
pretty handy but eventually all this stuff is going to clobber your
computer because, after all, each and every program is going to take
both memory and processor time. Add enough gizmos and pretty soon your
applications (word processing, browser) slows to a crawl.
With Windows loading stuff all over the place plus the really sneaky
stuff like spyware, viruses and ad-ware how do you get a handle on it
all?
Ultimate StartUp Manager. It helps you control what's loaded plus a
lot more as well.
Without a doubt the neatest feature I found in Ultimate StartUp
Manager was the ability to boot to a "clean" system. They call it "turbo
mode" and it'll provide the best performance and stability possible. I
have a "junk" test machine that I load all kinds of junk on and after
going into "turbo mode" it convinced me it was still a usable computer,
it was just bogged down by "junk" (man, I wish this wasn't a g-rated
site because I have some very colorful alternatives to junk).
During turbo startup you can even have Ultimate StartUp Manager
prompt you to select programs to load and create a "profile" that
contains those programs. So maybe all your junk is stuff you want but
from time to time you need to do a processor intensive job like video
rendering; not a program, fire up your "high performance" profile, do
your heavy duty job and then boot back to your normal configuration.
