During the next few weeks, I will focus on ways to increase the speed and efficiency of your computer. Let's start at the beginning, with startup.

Does it seem like it takes half an hour to boot up your computer? Although that's an exaggeration, starting Windows can be an arduous process.

First, you have to wait for the desktop screen to appear. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the icons appear on the desktop. You try to double click one of the icons and open your web browser, but wait. . .it's that annoying pointer/hourglass combination.

The reason for this strange cursor is that icons for programs are loading on the lower right corner of the screen. It takes time to load these icons, and the pointer/hourglass appears while they are loading.

You might be wondering why it takes so long to load just an icon for a program. It wouldn't take so long if this were the case.

Many times when you install a new program an icon will be placed in the lower right corner automatically.

In fact, the programs represented by the icons are loading each time you start Windows.

This wouldn't be such a big deal if you used each one of these programs every time you used your computer. In reality, many of the programs set to load at startup are hardly ever used at all.

When these programs start up, they use valuable system memory. Curious about how much memory is wasted? Press Control-Alt-Delete once immediately after you boot up. Count the number of programs listed in the box. That's the number of programs you have running invisibly in the background.

Time to get rid of some of these unwanted memory killers. There are a few ways to do this.

First, try right-clicking on one of the icons on the lower right corner you want to remove. On the menu, click on "Properties" or "Preferences" if it's there. Once there, uncheck on the box with a message similar to "Start program when Windows starts."

Some programs won't give you that luxury. Disabling the automatic startup on these programs is a little bit trickier.

Ready to try it? Go to the Start menu, and click on "Run." Then, type in "msconfig".

Click on the "Startup" tab. It's the one on the far right. There, you will find a list of programs set to start when your computer starts up.

Uncheck the checkmarks to the programs you don't want starting up. A word of warning, however. Only uncheck a program if you know it's not needed.

Make sure to leave "systray" checked, as well as your sound software and virus protection software. If you aren't sure whether or not you need a program, be safe and leave it checked.

After you are done unchecking programs, click "OK." You will be asked to restart your computer.

After the computer reboots, hopefully at a much quicker rate, the program shortcuts you removed will be conveniently stored in a folder called "Disabled Startup Items." This folder is located in "Programs" in the Start menu.

Using this method, you should be able to remove the majority of the unwanted and unnecessary programs.

If you ever want to set a program back to automatic startup, simply go back to "msconfig" and recheck it.

Any questions or need further explanation? Feel free to email me questions, suggestions or general comments.

Next week I'll continue the discussion on ways to improve your computer's speed and efficiency by discussing disk defragmentation and ScanDisk.